after a crash of LabView cannot edit controls properties

[solar]

When I tried to acces the properties of a numeric control on a vi front panel by right clicking on it and selecting Properties, LabView shutted down with no error indication. After having relaunched LabView, the properties tool of any control and indicator (either numeric or text) doesnt work anymore. After right clicking on the control/indicator and then clicking "properties" the mouse pointer goes to busy for few seconds and then nothing happenLabView does not hang and continue to work as if I hadn't clicked on properties.
I use a LabView 8.5 Professional Developement System on a windows 2000 OS

[Hillman]

 Hi Solar,

This sounds rather strang. 

Did you change anything on your setup? I would recommend to get LV back to normal to do a full remove and reinstall.

These are the steps I would follow:

The following procedure will remove the National Instrument Software:

1.     Turn off the computer and physically remove or unplug all NI hardware that you have installed on your system.
    This includes anything that is PCI-, ISA-, USB-, 1394-, or ethernet-based.

2.     Turn the computer on and go through Add/Remove Programs (START » SETTINGS » CONTROL PANEL » Add/Remove Programs)
    and remove everything NI-related. Generally, if you can remember, it is best to uninstall things in
    the reverse order in which they were installed. For example, if you installed LabVIEW, then NI-DAQ, and then the
    Internet Developers Toolkit for LabVIEW, you should uninstall the Internet Developers Toolkit first,
    then NI-DAQ, and then LabVIEW last.

3.     After everything has been removed (do not be concerned at this point if an item still shows up in the
    Add/Remove Programs list after you have removed it), close all programs and restart your computer.

4.    Go to START button of your operating system, choose RUN and type "regedit". This will open the Registry
    Editor window. Go to the Registry Menu and choose Export Registry File. Select "All" for the export range,
    and select a file name. This creates a backup of the Registry in case a mistake is made when deleting the keys.

5.     Remove the following registry components from the Windows Registry:

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\National Instruments Delete the entire tree!
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\National Instruments Delete the entire tree!
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\ or \ISA and delete registry entries containing any
    keys with 1093 in them.
   
    Do not worry if any of these trees are not listed. Continue with the remainder of the process .

    Note: You may need to modify security policies. In Windows 2000/98/95/NT, go to [regedt32] then
    Security>>Permissions. In Windows XP you can modify security options using Edit>>Permissions in the
    Registry Editor (regedit).

6.     Close regedit.

7.     Make sure that you do not have any of your own VIs or other files saved in the "C:\VXIpnp",
    "C:\Program Files\National Instruments", or "C:\WINDOWS\nidaq" folders. If you do, copy them to a
    different location. If you are concerned about keeping old virtual channels and your SCXI setup intact,
    then backup the "C:\WINDOWS\niconfig.daq" file, too. Delete all folders and files mentioned above.

    Note: If you have Windows NT/2000, replace "C:\Windows" with "C:\WINNT" in the paths listed above.

8.     Save the attached file msiBlast.zip to your desktop.

    a) Extract the file msiBlast.exe from the zip archive.
    b) Double click on the downloaded msiBlast.exe file to run the executable.
c) Choose the Show NI Installers Only selection.

d) Using (Ctrl+Left Mouse Click) select all National Instruments Software that appears in MSIBlast.
e) Press the Uninstall button. This will uninstall all of the National Instruments MSI Registry entries.

f) Optional:
The Repair option will open the National instruments Installer Program and run the repair option within the installer.

Maintenance Mode will open the Installer Program and allow the user to modify the installation. To open the installer do not enter anything in the Command Line Arg? Dialog box.

9.     Reboot your computer.

10.     You should be ready to install your software. For the cleanest possible install, first install all of your
    application development software, such as LabVIEW, Measurement Studio, etc. Do a custom install, so that you can
    install just the application WITHOUT ANY DRIVERS. Reboot your PC when requested after each install.
    Even if the installer does not tell you to reboot, it would probably be a good idea to do so anyway.
    Now install your driver software and follow the associated user manuals. Some older non Plug-n-Play hardware
    must be installed before the driver. Download the latest versions of the drivers that support your hardware
    from our Drivers and Updates software library (link below), and install them one-by-one, rebooting after each
    install.

11.     Finally, shut down and re-install your hardware. When you boot back up, it should be detected in MAX.

NI Drivers Link :  -  http://www.ni.com/softlib.nsf

**Attached is msiBlast.

***Do you get an error messages?

Let me know what you think,

Kind Regards

[solar]

Thanks Hillman for your hints, I'll try in the next future your rather radical recipie to solve my problem; for the time being I'll keep up with LabView as it is 'couse of stringent timing.
What happened was really strange, I was programming a simple vi communicating with an instrument via ENET100 GPIB-ethernet converter. I wasn't accessing to the instrument when the LV closure happened (BTW previous accessess to the instrument were ok), I was simply selecting "properties" from the drop down menu appearing when you right click on a control, immediatley after LV disappeared from the screen without any warning/erro message. Re-launching LV it asked me whether I wanted to rescue the previous vi with no indication on what brought to the crash. From then on can't pop up the property tab anymore. Even the Lvfailurelog file has no trace of this episode

[Ben]

A quick subtle test is to simply rename the "LabVIEW.ini" file and then re-launch LV. If that does not fix the pop-up issue, just re-name it back.

Ben

[solar]

Tried, doesen't work
Thanks. have a nice WE

[solar]

Hi Hillman
This morning I first tried to remove LV8.5 simply using add/remove program utility in Win2000, then I cancelled MSI entries using msiblast.exe you sent me and, last, I reinstalled LV8.5. Luckily this worked and now LV8.5 is fully functional again.
I didn't follow the complete procedure you suggested me bacause on my laptop different version of LV (6.1, 8.2 and 8.5) are coexisting and I was afraid to make some mistake that forced me to reinstalla all versions. Many tahnks for your suggestions tha solve my troubles

[Hillman]

Hi Solar,

I hope your well.

Im glad this resolved the issue!

Happy labVIEWing.

Kind Regards,