can i use labview 7.1 and 6.1 on same platform

[paulmeaney]

Hi
I am wondering can i use the two versions on the same platform, ie windows xp. there are some large programs on each version and they are all part of a bigger application that needs to run together. Any help would be appreciated.....

[tst]

I have 6.1 and 7.0 installed on one XP PC and on a 98 PC and 7.0 and 7.1 installed on another XP PC with no problems. I suspect this shouldn't be a problem with 6.1 and 7.1 either.
I'm pretty sure you can't run one big application from different versions of LV at the same time, however.
If you're using the run time engine, the VIs will need to be compiled (i.e., saved in the matching version) and I don't think the development environments will be able to talk to each other using the same VIs (although you could probably use other methods, like TCP).
Any reason not the upgrade the entire app to 7.1?

[paulmeaney]

Thanks for that. They dont need to be able to talk to each other but they need to be running at the same time. I need to run them for a research experiment and the different programs are pretty big also so i dont want to have to go changing them. Just once the finished programs can run ill be happy!

[tst]

Well, I have no problems running the 2 different versions at the same time or running 2 different run time engines at the same time.
Upgrading does not necessarily mean changing, but that's really up to you. As long as the programs don't need to communicate, there is no need to upgrade. I don't think the additional resources taken by running 2 version of LV should overwhelm your PC.
If you do have performance issues, you can try opening the old program in 7.1 and see if the changes in functionality affect you. Keep in mind that you can only have one VI of a given name at one time, so if you have VIs with the same names in both programs, only one will be selected. Also, keep in mind that bugs come and go, so you might get unexpected behavioral changes.

[paulmeaney]

Ill keep all that in mind. Thanks for the help.

[paulmeaney]

Hi Again.

I was talking to the technician in the department and he said that from past experience the two different versions of Labview will not run together or if they do then one of them will normally corrupt the other. I have some very important programs running on 6 that will not run on 7.1 and vise versa. Has anyone else had a bad experience with this?

Paul.

[Evan]

Can the technician give any more information than that? Specifically what has he seen, and was it 2 LabVIEW built exes or the development environments?

The 2 versions of LabVIEW should not effect each other, other than memory usage. They are stand-alone applications, so as mentioned they can not talk to each other directly, so I am not sure how they could corrupt each other. To some degree it is like running any 2 executable at the same time. In addition I regularly run multiple versions of LabVIEW at the same time.

In the end though I would suggest trying it and seeing. There should be no interaction as we have stated, but it will most likely make you feel better to see for your self that it is ok.

[Dennis_Knutson]

If your separate programs are exe files, then you shouldn't have any problems and one program cannot corrupt the other. If you start up LabVIEW x, open a VI and run it, then start up LabVIEW y, open a VI and run it, there shouldn't be any problems. In both cases, each instance of LabVIEW is separate and neither knows that the other is running. I have never seen a case of one LabVIEW version corrupting another version of LabVIEW. Your only issue would be common hardware resources. If both programs need access to common hardware such as a DAQ board or GPIB interface, then of course there's bound to be issues. My only real concern with multiple versions of LabVIEW (I currently have 4 installed), is which version of NI-DAQ is installed. A newer version of NI-DAQ might not have support for an older DAQ board so I'm a bit careful about updating the driver.

I'm curious though, about your statement that you have some programs running 6 that will not run on 7.1. What exactly doesn't run?

[chrisger]

hi there

i developed large apps under 7.0 and 7.1 on one machine. i never had any problems with corrupted or mixed up vis between the two apps, but think of:

- first install the lower version of LV
- be extremly careful with the installation of device drivers, e.g. LV 7.1 offers you the option "support for 6.x" when installing DAQmx.
don't let any version of LV overwrite files of another version at installation
- be sure to open the apps always with the correct version
- to run the two apps at the same time you should build a executable of at least one of them!
- you can check the LV Version your apps are running with the App.Version property

best regards
chris

[paulmeaney]

Hello.

Thanks for writing back. I am currently working with a group in college and I have built and designed a miniturised temperature chamber that is controlled using labview 7.1 through an NI-USB 6008 device. This device needs to run on labview 7.1. The other part of the group have designed a microscopic sensing instrument that needs to be housed in my chamber and they are quite sure that the programs that they have written will not run on Labview 7.1. So I just wanted to be sure before we try to run the two versions together.