Which version in which to distribute VIs?

[TheWaterbug]

I did some VIs in LV 5.1 (the only licensed version we own) as a proof of concept, and they work great!

I just installed the 8.6 Eval version, and I can't open them ("version too old" error). I want to open them in some intermediate version and re-save them so I can open them in newer versions, but I want to choose the "right" version to resave them under so that they are most widely usable by my customer base.

Is there a versioning table somewhere that shows what versions of LV read/break which file format versions? e.g. I don't want to bring them all the way forward to 8.6 if that means people with 8.2 can't read them, but I don't want to leave them at 7.0 if that still keeps them incompatible with 8.6.

Once I decide on a version, I will still need some help doing the actual conversion, because I only have 5.1 and 8.6 Eval

Thanks! 

[Dennis_Knutson]

Unless you are prepared to do some searching for old versions (NI only sells the most recent), I think the most practical option is to just use LabVIEW 8.6. For 8.6 to open them, you could save them in 6.0 but it's difficult to resave them to that version. You would need every intermediate version from 6.0 to 8.0. With 8.6, you can save as far back as 8.0 so you could set that as the version you would distribute them in.

My guess is that you would also want to do some major rewrites with your program. There have been considerable changes and based on your other post about reading binary files, much different methods in the current versions.

[RavensFan · Accepted solution]

Take a look at this link to know what versions of LV are needed to do conversions whether up or down.  https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA03q000000YSO4CAO&l=en-US

[Cory_K]

Sometimes if you post your VI on the forums and ask nicely ,

someone who has the versions in between will convert them for you.

..... that is assuming you dont mind posting the VI's on a public forum.

[TheWaterbug]

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Ravens Fan wrote:

Take a look at this link to know what versions of LV are needed to do conversions whether up or down.  https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA03q000000YSO4CAO&l=en-US

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Awesome. This is exactly the kind of matrix I was looking for. 

The particular client in question just emailed me to tell me they are using 7.1, so it looks like they'll be able to use the VIs I emailed them without any problem. 

 The VIs I "wrote" are extraordinarily simple; it's just six elementary VIs to get strings in/out of 3 different DLLs, plus a VI to send a file a line at a time, a VI to send an entire file, and a VI to plot our binary format. 

 I probably will end up re-writing all of them and keeping the 5.1 versions around for legacy customers.