LabVIEW
Why can't I install .inf file generated by NI-VISA Driver Wizard?
The whole idea of driver installation for self created VISA INF files has more or less been rendered obsolete with the actual development of OS security since Windows 7.
In order to install a driver since Windows 7, it needs to be signed. Creating a signed driver document requires a valid certificate that YOU (or your company) owns. NI can’t include their certificate in the driver generation wizard as the private key of their certificate would be revealed in that way and anyone could extract it and then sign whatever malicious document he desires, as being officially issued by NI.
Since very few people own such certificates and feel like paying for it annually to keep them valid, there is very little sense in updating the driver generation wizard to allow to refer to a certificate to automatically generate the necessary signature. Windows has according command line tools that let you generate the signed driver easily, should you have the necessary certificate.
The other alternative is to temporarily disable driver signing in Windows, although I read that requires since Windows 10 rebooting your machine twice.
Hmmm HID devices might pose an additional problem. They are often claimed by Windows built in drivers during boot up and might not be assignable to VISA without disabling the original driver first.
The PNF file is simply a precompiled INF file and normally created automatically by Windows when an INF file is installed.
What HID device is it? And you are aware that you will have to implement the HID protocol on top of the USB Raw VISA interface?
And you installed their software? You might need to uninstall it in order for NI VISA to be able to claim the device. Also it won't show up in the device manager list as an USB device but rather some NI VISA device. Once the device is assigned to NI-VISA, Windows does not care about it anymore and won't show its resources in the USB device tree.
Even with the original driver installed it will likely be listed in the device manager as a Victor or similar device rather than a generic HID USB device.
And you are sure it is a HID device and not a Virtual Comm port (VCP) device?
As just an experiment a few months ago I did install a custom VISA driver in Windows 10. I went with the temporarily disable the signed driver (reboot needed), installed the driver, then enabled the signed driver (another reboot). But ultimately it wasn't worth the effort and we went another route for communication. But it was still possible.
