What's Your Favorite Version of Labview?

[Dhubbell]

Just curious if there are any favorite versions of Labview and why.  Personally, I have always kept a maintaince agreement, but, I've never updated since "LV 2018 Professional Development System."

It's always a painful experience upgrading Labview.  I'm considering upgrading again and I wanted to hear some feedback/advice about upgrading Labview.  It's been suggested to me the best upgrade path is 2018 >> 2021 >> 2024 Q3>>2025.

"LV 2018 Professional Development System" has been so darn reliable for me and I'm not sure what to do.

What's Your Favorite Version of Labview?

Thanks for your feedback!

[avogadro5]

NXG. Fixed all kinds of decades old issues with LabVIEW.

[billko]

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@avogadro5 wrote:

NXG. Fixed all kinds of decades old issues with LabVIEW.

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No matter how I tried to like it, there were design choices I could not abide by.  Like no control refs so you couldn't separate your Event Loop into its own subVI.  I did like where it was going, though.

[billko]

LV 7.11.  It had to be the most bulletproof version ever.  It just worked.  After that, maybe LV 2015.

[Kyle97330]

There were additions in both 2019 and 2020 that I liked.

2019 added the Map and Set data types.  I haven't had much use for Sets, but Maps have been quite useful on numerous occasions as they are essentially arrays where the lookup index can be anything (not just an I32) without having to search the entire list looking for a match on the lookup element of a cluster or class in the array.

2020 added "Interfaces" to classes.  Interfaces allow for much more powerful use of LVOOP.  There's a presentation video you can watch if you don't know what they are and are interested:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1rQ36Faxmc

Features added after that have been much less helpful.  Not unhelpful, just never a motivation for me to update.  Still, LabVIEW 2022 is the first version to officially support Windows 11 so getting to that version or later may be recommended just for that, though I haven't heard of things explicitly breaking due to Windows 11 in earlier LV versions.

[Kyle97330]

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@Dhubbell wrote:

  It's been suggested to me the best upgrade path is 2018 >> 2021 >> 2024 Q3>>2025.

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Oh, and regarding this, this is mostly a thing if you want to use multiple versions at once paired with the assorted support software (DAQmx, etc.).  If you have 2018 and 2021, and install DAQmx 2021, it works on both 2018 and 2021, but that's the most separate you can get.

If you're thinking of a large jump where you don't want to maintain old versions on the same PC any more, leaping straight to 2025 is likely OK.

[roto2]

Right now I'm working with the 2020 version and and pretty satisfied, before that we used 2012 (wich I loved too) and 6.1 (or whas it 7?, I can't remenber). We only upgrade the LabVIEW version when there's a new hardware we need which is not compatible with our current version. We are a very little enterprise I we could not deal with having the same machine with different versions spread all over the world.

[pincpanter]

More contributions here

[rolfk]

I hated NXG with a vengeance. Never been a fan of MDI applications, way to constrained and I have a dual monitor system for a reason and don’t like my IDE to constrain me to one window. Yes, I use Visual Studio too, but always have to kick my ass to get over the initial contempt.

7.1.1 was for a long time my main version until I started to move to the newer project window around 2011.

8.0 was a drama, but I did use 8.2.1, 8.5.1 and 8.6.1 a few times for cRIO work as the real-time capabilities in 7.1.1 were very cumbersome.

After 2011 I worked in most versions, usually after the SP1 release got available. Main use was in 2013. 2016, 2017 and 2019. But it depended always on projects. The LabVIEW version was generally chosen at the start of a project on the base which was the latest SP1 version and never changed during the course of a project unless there was a very compelling reason to do so, such as unsupported or buggy supported hardware in the older version. Most times projects stayed in the original version even when they were maintained many years later.

Currently I have standardized on 2020 for most projects and 2018 for projects that involve old legacy cRIOs. Toolkits I release in 8.6, if it doesn’t need newer features, because that is the first version where I have a Linux installation available and also the first to support 64-bit configurations in the Call Library Node despite that the first official release of LabVIEW 64-bit is 2009.

I’m considering to move to 2025 at some point but need to test a few things until then and feel absolutely no FOMO about it. 😀

As to upgrading from 2018 to 2025, unless you have a very nasty application that uses lots of weird to outright evil hardware, I see no reason to do that in multiple steps. Maybe if you need to be compatible with your supplier or client who is not going to upgrade to the latest and greatest for some reason, it could make sense to go in steps, but generally I would in that case refrain from going beyond the version you try to be compatible with, except for some tests to see if you have compatibility problems. But I would never maintain the code in the newer version. One of the worst things you can do is to have diverging versions of your code. That is NEVER gonna be merged back together, no matter how much you promise yourself to do that anyways.

[softball]

Hi

My favorite is LabVIEW 2018 SP1, as Dhubbell's. It is the last classic LabVIEW version with a classic installer for better or worse and the classic splendid hybrid compiler and it was widely supported with toolkits and modules.

That said, all other LabVIEW versions are useful too. I have been in the game since LabVIEW 3.1.1 and there are no real dud's to be avoided, except the unreliable 6.0 and 8.0. Feature wise LabVIEW 2014/15 was outstanding releases.

LabVIEW since 2019 has been an un-smooth journey. We all know what happened. Fortunately NI seems to have reset here in 2025 so they may come back stronger.

But LabVIEW is now relegated to be a support tool for TestStand. So the version to use going forward is the version that is supported by TestStand.

What I strongly advice against is the temptation to install more than one LabVIEW version per disk partition. I have been there and regretted it.

NI software is a spidernet of components which gives constraints. Some parts requires versions of other parts and may require a specific installation order. Solving that puzzle is complicated enough for just one version of LabVIEW. And then comes the problem if something needs repair or re-installation. We all know installing LabVIEW and the additions is a full days work, or more if it fails.

I always use disk imaging using Acronis. I configure a nice base computer including the indispensable tools and install the NI license manager. Then make an image of that. And image again as I install LabVIEW stuff. Use a computer where you can easily switch the disk to the LabVIEW version you need for the day.

Regards