having problems sharing variables between 2 windows machines

[Steve Hecht]

I am attempting to share variables between two Windows XP based PCs on a standalone network.  Each machine has LabView 8.2 installed.  The programs on each machine are identical.  They consist of shared variables of several types (Boolean, integer, string, etc.) which are attached to indicators in a timed loop to show their state.  Controls in the VI fire events which are used to modify the states of the shared variables.  When I run the VI on the machine hosting the shared variables it runs fine.  When I start the VI on the ‘client’ machine it either doesn’t see the state of the shared variables, locks up the ‘host’ VI, or both.  I have tried variations on this theme i.e. controls bound to the shared variables, indicators bound to the shared variables, reducing the number of shared variables to 2 or 3, etc.  None of this has affected the behavior of the shared variables.  Does anyone have a simple example that provides the shared variable configurations and ‘host’ and ‘client’ VIs that reliably communicate shared variable values between two Windows based PCs?

[DuffmanSays]

Hello Steve,

Though I do not have a simple example of this communication process, it should be relatively straightforward to build. You mentioned that the programs on these two PCs are identical. However, can we assume that they differ in the shared variable binding? What I mean is that you should have two libraries: one for the server and one for the client. The variables on the server are left unbound and those on the client are bound to their corresponding variables on the server. Is this a good description of the test you’ve been trying?

I would next as whether you are configuring the client VI (and its bindings) from the LabVIEW development environment on the client PC. If so, are you able to browse the network for the other PC’s deployed variables? If not, are you able to successfully deploy the client library? You mentioned that when starting the client VI it sometimes locks up the host VI. Is this during deployment? I assume that this works when both the server and client VIs are run on the development machine?

Basically I am trying to further characterize the behavior that you have seen so that we might be able to determine what is wrong. Thank you very much for you time.

Mike D.