Windows 7 Taskbar

[Darin.K]

LabVIEW has always played by its own rules when it comes to window behavior, from Alt+Tab to live clicks in windows without focus.  I have just started using Windows 7 at home with LV9.0.1 and it seems to me that LV is not playing nicely with the new Windows Taskbar.  If I have a window minimized and I hover over the LV icon I get the nice thumbnail previews, but if I try to click one of the thumbnails I get a 'dong' and no window.  I have to get the thumbnail then right-click and restore.  Or I can shift-right-click and restore all (sometimes).   A window that is not minimized is brought to the front properly from the thumbnail.

This is fresh SP1 install on a relatively fresh Windows 7 32-bit system.  I hope this is not the usual behavior, it is getting on my nerves as some of these maneuvers are spinal reflexes at this point.  Other applications behave as I would expect and so does the LV splash screen.

[altenbach]

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Darin.K wrote:

If I have a window minimized and I hover over the LV icon I get the nice thumbnail previews, but if I try to click one of the thumbnails I get a 'dong' and no window.  I have to get the thumbnail then right-click and restore.  Or I can shift-right-click and restore all (sometimes).   A window that is not minimized is brought to the front properly from the thumbnail.

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 I just switched to W7 64bit and the taskbar works correctly, even when restoring a minimized windows by clicking on its thumbnail.

[Ben]

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Darin.K wrote:

LabVIEW has always played by its own rules when it comes to window behavior, from Alt+Tab to live clicks in windows without focus.  I have just started using Windows 7 at home with LV9.0.1 and it seems to me that LV is not playing nicely with the new Windows Taskbar.  If I have a window minimized and I hover over the LV icon I get the nice thumbnail previews, but if I try to click one of the thumbnails I get a 'dong' and no window.  I have to get the thumbnail then right-click and restore.  Or I can shift-right-click and restore all (sometimes).   A window that is not minimized is brought to the front properly from the thumbnail.

This is fresh SP1 install on a relatively fresh Windows 7 32-bit system.  I hope this is not the usual behavior, it is getting on my nerves as some of these maneuvers are spinal reflexes at this point.  Other applications behave as I would expect and so does the LV splash screen.

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We have a Task timer we use internally to track our time on projects that i recently re-wrote for LV 2009. It inserts itself in the system tray fine under XP but on Windows 7, I have recieved reports of it not "coming to the front" and the user has to close all other windows to find it.

Note: this has only been seen when running as an exe.

I have not had a chance to chse that down.

Now if you are talking about the development environment... then I can't say I have seen that issue.

Ben

[David_L]

I have also been using LabVIEW 2009 and 2009 SP1 on Windows 7 (Aero) for a few months now with no real issues.  The only taskbar issue I've seen is the pixelated icon of the example finder, but that's already been reported to R&D (CAR #186575).  

Do you see the problem if you have only one window open (getting started window or just a front panel) and click on the icon instead of a thumbnail?

[Darin.K]

The getting started window behaves normally.   I can start LV, create a blank VI, minimize the FP and BD windows and then try to restore from the thumbnails without success.  A single minimized VI FP will not restore by clicking the icon.

At least there is hope of local interference and not some inherent problem.  Much more fun when I am not the one poring through the depths of Windows, LabVIEW and their interactions.  On the bright side, these problems usually increase my knowledge of useless information on how either Windows or LV functions.

NI probably isn't equipped to handle the new bug reports yet I assume.  I am on the verge of creating a new user account dedicated to LV and revert to the XP style taskbar.

[Darin.K]

After a reboot I tried again and everything was working fine.  I then created this screencast showing one of the Windows 7 features that I really like.  Fortunately I had the microphone muted because near the end while trying to restore the VI the strange behavior started again and a few expletives slipped out.  You'll notice the search for the restore item on the menu.  It is starting to smell like a problem with some other program on my machine....

[David_L]

Weird, it seems as if there's some modal window or dialog that is preventing you from selecting the windows in LabVIEW.  You'll notice the "dong" if you have a Express VI configuration window and try to click on the block diagram.  I can try to look into this and see if anyone around here has some other ideas.  I assume this does not happen with other programs that have more than one window?

[Darin.K]

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David_L wrote:
Weird, it seems as if there's some modal window or dialog that is preventing you from selecting the windows in LabVIEW.  You'll notice the "dong" if you have a Express VI configuration window and try to click on the block diagram.  I can try to look into this and see if anyone around here has some other ideas.  I assume this does not happen with other programs that have more than one window?

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So far, LV is the only one causing trouble.  Since you mention modal windows, I do notice that I get a very short glimpse of the tools palette as the VI fails to restore.  This is true even when I am not showing the tools palette.

[David_L]

In talking to others, it still seems like there's some other software on your PC that's causing trouble.  One guy used to have Ultramon on his PC and it affected LabVIEW (and only LabVIEW) in some funky ways.  Do you have any other programs on your computer that deals with Monitors, taskbars, hotkeys, etc?  Maybe disabling these might help.

Another suggestion, if it is a LabVIEW problem, is to try renaming/deleting your LabVIEW.ini file and restart LabVIEW.  This will clear any settings that might have been causing strange happenings.