When will DSC be updated for 64-bit?

[Mach4]

NI has been clear that they were planning on phasing out support for 32-bit operating systems, and in February announced that: 
"On May 1, 2021, National Instruments software will drop support for ... all 32-bit Windows operating systems."
"New versions of NI hardware drivers will install only on supported 64-bit operating systems and will include both 32-bit and 64-bit user-mode support, meaning users can continue to run 32- or 64-bit applications on supported 64-bit operating systems." [my emphasis]

https://www.ni.com/en-us/support/documentation/supplemental/19/national-instruments-support-for-wind...

I have a major update for my test facility acquisition system coming up. The software utilizes DSC to communicate with some of the facility control systems (OPC UA). It is increasingly problematic to have LabVIEW and DSC forced to run 32-bit, while other systems are now all 64-bit.

Even LabVIEW DSC's 2020 edition is still 32-bit and can only be used with 32-bit LabVIEW. Is NI planning on updating DSC to be 64-bit, or replace it with a 64-bit alternative that can provide access via OPC-UA? If so, when is that expected to be released?

[RavensFan]

Nothing about that announcement says that NI is dropping 32 bit versions of its software.

Just that those versions and drivers will only run on 64-bit operating systems.

"It is increasingly problematic to have LabVIEW and DSC forced to run 32-bit, while other systems are now all 64-bit."

What other systems that are now all 64-bit are you talking about?  From my experience, the vast majority of software running on a 64-bit OS is still 32-bit software.

Compare your Program Files directory with your Program Files (x86) directory and see which one has far more programs installed in it.

[billko]

It's usually recommended to run LV 32-bit unless you have need for memory above the 32-bit limit.

[rolfk]

As already indicated, hardware driver support for 32-bit Windows OS and 32-bit applications are two entirely different things. One means that you can't install NI drivers on 32-bit Windows installations. With Windows 7 having been going out of service at the beginning of this year you would be hard pressured to find any new machines that still use a 32-bit OS. While Windows 10 has had some 32-bit builds they are pretty hard to get at and almost non-existent.

LabVIEW 32-bit however is still the predominantly used version on most Windows installations and that will continue to work.There is no real reason to go to LabVIEW 64-bit for most use cases unless you do image acquisition or other similar applications that need more than 3GB of memory to be possible to run.

The components used in LabVIEW DSC are for a large part legacy components and many of them are highly unlikely to be updated to run as 64-bit software. Most people nowadays seem to use it mainly for OPC UA access, but that the DSC system is a bit of a dynosour if you just use it for OPC UA. Either NI will provide at some point a seperate OPC UA API only that can also run in 64-bit or someone else will create a full featured OPC UA API based on one of the Open Source libraries out there. My personal favorite for this would be probably open62541. IMHO LabVIEW DSC is going to be a legacy software that NI likely is not gonna update to 64-bit.

[Mach4]

I chose the term "problematic" since our data system interacts with multiple different systems using different drivers.  I'm trying to future proof our system against the day other drivers move to 64-bit support only. I don't want to have to home-brew when we can get a tested and certified driver from the OEM.  We also interface with Microsoft Office for some of the report generation.  My organization has all moved to 64-bit Office, with the only exception being the data systems and the development system for the data system where we have to maintain 32-bit Office.  I would prefer to not have to maintain multiple versions if we don't have to.  

It may be true today that a lot of systems have 32-bit software on them for legacy compatibility, but those are being phased out.  That's why I wanted to ask NI what their plans are.  I've seen other people ask the same question and not get an answer, but it's been a while, so I thought I would ask again.

I appreciate the speculation from active developers on the board, but I would rather get a straight answer from someone representing NI, than a lot of educated guesses from people who don't actually know.

[rolfk]

NI will only comment on this in two cases:

1) They have created an update and everything is ready for release within a few weeks.

2) They announced a depreciation strategy of the product.

There is one other option if you are a multi million account for NI. Talk with your personal contact person who might be able to give you off the record information.

[RavensFan]

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@Mach4 wrote:

It may be true today that a lot of systems have 32-bit software on them for legacy compatibility, but those are being phased out.  That's why I wanted to ask NI what their plans are.  I've seen other people ask the same question and not get an answer, but it's been a while, so I thought I would ask again.

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That is true, but my personal belief is that is still along ways away from happening based on what I see in current PC software.  That event will be driven by Microsoft and will occur whenever they announce they will stop supporting any 32 bit application within Windows and the WOW64 subsystem that allows 32 bit apps to run on the 64 bit OS.

My purely uninformed guess, at least 5 years away, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is 10 years.