VISA System Memory Range Conflict

[ajoos-ztec]

I am having an issue with VISA drivers in Windows. I am working with the LabVIEW 8.6.1, and the associated components with the 2009Q1 NI Developer Suite. 

What I am experiencing is that on a fresh install of Windows, XP or Vista I will install the full LabVIEW development environment, including everything on the NI driver disk. After doing this I will install my ZTEC instruments using the VISA drivers. When I do this I am unable to communicate with the instruments, or bring them up in NI-MAX. When I go to Windows Device Manager the cards are installed, but under the Resources tab the Memory Range and IO Range are marked through and it is stated that there is not enough free system resources to use this hardware. 

If I reverse this installation process and install the ZTEC software first, then the LabVIEW software, everything works correctly. It seems that something in the LabVIEW installation is pre-allocating the memory range associated with VISA devices and preventing other drivers from accessing these system resources.

I have tried going through the various packages installed by LabVIEW but there are a bunch of them and I am not sure where to start. I have a feeling that there is something in the Device Drivers that is causing the issue, but that is really just a guess.

Thank you so much for any help.

Aaron 

[Logan_H.]

Hey Aaron,

Let me make sure I have this right, the goal is to use the ZTEC devices in LabVIEW, right? Well a good troubleshooting step would be to try the following. Install LabVIEW, install NI-VISA, and install the ZTEC VISA driver for the device. Lets see if they work without any other device drivers.

I think we're running into a problem with device drivers conflicting between the ZTEC VISA drivers and the ZTEC device drivers. A similar problem exists when trying to use both Agilent and NI drivers to control the same device as seen in this Knowledge Base.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/3B3626D9C1F999218625694200791AD7?OpenDocument

Also, are the VISA drivers for these ZTEC devices the ones found on www.ni.com/idnet ? I noticed that these drivers are not certified or maintained by NI yet so we cannot guarantee that they will necessarily work reliably.

Logan H