Why does removing Labview 7.0 breaks my Agilent 8164a driver?

[fbellay]

Hello,

We have an Agilent 8164A tunable laser connected to our Test Station trough PCI-GPIC board. It's been working fine for the last year.

This week, I installed a new program which I thought requires to work with Labiew 8.0.1 Runtime engine only.

As a result, I un-installed other potentially conflicting Labview programs:

Removed Labview 7.0

Removed Runtime Labview 7.0

Removed Runtime Labview 7.1

Big mistake.

After that, I was unable to properly communicate with the Agilent 8164A tunable laser. I hear 3 beeps on Agilent device, then I get the following error message from Labview:

Error -1074000633 occurred at hp816x Set PWM Parameters.vi

Possible reason(s):

Driver Status:  (Hex 0xBFFC0D07) Instrument Error Detected, call hp816x_error_query().

Realizing the mistake I just did, I performed a Windows System Restore in order to go back in time and revive

Labview 7.0

Runtime Labview 7.0

Runtime Labview 7.1

The Windows System Restore did not seem to work since I am still getting the same error when communicating with the Agilent device.

Now I decided to re-install the Agilent 816x V5.0 driver. (See attachemnt). It involves to open the driver and "compile" with Labview 5.0...see attachement. We only have Labview 8.0 here wich is completely different from 5.0

I am now stuck and need advice.

Questions:

1) Why did I break the Agilent driver when removing  Labview 7.0, Runtime Labview 7.0, Runtime Labview 7.1?

2) Does anyone uses Agilent 8164A tunable laser with Labview 8.0? How do you make it work?

I am including a list of NI items installed on the PC.

Regards,

Frank

[Dennis_Knutson]

I don't know why the program is suddenly broken but you do not need 5.0 to re-create the driver. Those instructions you posted will work for any version of LabVIEW up to 8.0. There is no 'compling' involved. The process is to simply put a LabVEIW wrapper areound each function call in the dll. Version 8.0 uses a slightly different process but it really doesn't matter. On NI's download page for the instrument, there are already LabVIEW wrappers around the dll for 7.1 and 8.0.

The error code you are getting typically means that an incorrect command was sent or a command was sent that is incompatible with the current setup of the instrument. If you have problems with the new driver, you might want to turn on NI-Spy and look at what is being sent.

[Matthew_Kelton]

If you installed LV 8.0 and new device drivers, then you updated NI-VISA, which handles GPIB communication, and perhaps some default setting is different than in previous versions.

[Ted_H]

Hi Frank,

I have a few more questions that may help in solving your  problem.

1. What was the version of the hp816x driver you were using back when your Agilent 8164A was working?
2. What did you install that needed the 8.0.1 LabVIEW R.T.E?

Unfortunately, the drivers for your instrument are not supported by National Instruments.  However, looking at ni.com/idnet I found two hp816x drivers, one for LabVIEW 7.1 and one for LabVIEW 8.0.  If you were using the version built for LabVIEW 7.1, uninstalling LabVIEW 7.1 or the runtime may have broken the driver.

Have you tried using the hp816x driver for LabVIEW 8.0?  You can find this driver, along with thousands of other instrument drivers, from ni.com/idnet.  Here is a link to the hp816x driver page: http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/niid_web_display.download_page?p_id_guid=E3B19B3E9703659CE034080020E748...

I hope this information helps.

Ted

Message Edited by Ted H on 10-12-2007 11:20 AM

[fbellay]

Thank you all for your advices.

Since the problem occured right after removing  Labview 7.0, Runtime Labview 7.0 & Runtime Labview Labview 7.1, I was convinced the Labview un-installation was the root cause of the problem. I was wrong. After rebooting the Agilent device, the problem went away. Completely

It's amazing what a reset button can do.

Thanks again,

Frank