Which LabVIEW bitness to install?

[jmroadman]

Hello,

Apologies if this is answered elsewhere, but a quick search didn't show this exact topic.  Can someone help me decide whether to install 64 bit or 32 bit LabVIEW 2025?  I'm upgrading from 2019 32 bit and have real-time systems using FPGA, EtherCAT, PXIs and cRIOs. (not all at once).  I seem to recall that you used to need 32 bit for FPGA.  Is that still the case?  Am I risking losing any functionality by going up to 64 bit?  Why would someone still use 32-bit in today's day and age?

Thanks!

Jason

[crossrulz]

I moved on to 64-bit as soon as the cRIO driver supported 64-bit LabVIEW (2023? maybe earlier). It was the driver that was holding it back, not the toolkit support. I have yet to have an issue with moving to 64-bit.

But I will point you to this little article I recently found: Available Languages for LabVIEW Development System. Apparently only the English version is supported in 64-bit.

[softball]

Hi

This question has been asked before, giving a long-lived thread starting in 2015 and ending in 2023 ( including good responses from crossrulz also then ) :

https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Which-version-to-install-LabVIEW-32-bit-or-64-bit/td-p/3093097

Ni released this soft overview :

https://www.ni.com/en/support/documentation/supplemental/18/labview-32-bit-vs--64-bit-applications-f...

You can of course install both the 32 and the 64 bit. Nobody has yet complained about principal problems related to that, except for cross-linked projects and similar user errors.

There is the problem using 32 or 64 bit DLL's.

There is the problem using hardware only supported in one version. myRIO is one such requiring 32 bit.

There is the problem of accessing other environments, like Python. Requires same bitness.

There is the problem of some NI Toolkits and Modules, that was only available as 32 bits. But I guess all have been updated to 64 bits ( or killed ).

So, there is not a simple answer. If you need to use legacy hardware, toolkits or modules you may still be forced to use a 32 bits environment. If you only use current hardware and tools, 64 bits should/could be the preferred.

Regards

PS : And my best advice. Don't mix multiple versions of LabVIEW on one disk partition, if you also need to install any Toolkit or Module or Driver. Recovering from trouble will always end up requiring you to do a complete NI software re-install.