CVI 8.0.1 doesn't see FP for IVI libraries

[markus kossmann]

As a first step for upgrading our development environment from CVI 7.1.1 to 8.0.1 we did a parallel install for CVI 8.01 on a existing 7.1.1 development system.  This installation shows one problem: The entry for the IVI Library in the Libraries menu is grayed out ( the 7.1.1 menu is still OK) .

How to fix that problem ?  Do we need a newer version of IVI for 8.0.1 ?  

[LuisG]

Markus,

Even though you can have multiple versions of CVI installed in your system, you can only have one version of each driver, installed with one and only one of your versions of CVI. In order to see the IVI library in CVI 8.0.1, you will have to install it from the Driver CD that comes with CVI. When you do, if this is a more recent version of IVI than what you installed with CVI 7.1, it will upgrade it, and in the process it will remove it from CVI 7.1 and install in CVI 8.0.1 (a new driver will almost always install in the highest version of CVI that it finds).

Luis

[markus kossmann]

Did I understand you right that it isn't possible to use the current version of the IVI library from both versions  of the compiler ( 7.1.1 and 8.0.1) once it is installed ? What's the difference to the other libraries in the library menu (like for eample the gpib library) ,which don't seem to have that problem ?  

[mvr]

In order to get two versions of cvi to see the same driver I have followed this load order, but have not used this yet with version 8:

install older cvi version
install driver
install newer cvi version
install driver

This has worked as long as I load the same driver version to the same location each time.  When the driver files load they insert stuff into the latest version of CVI that they find, so that they are available in the CVI environment.  For this reason, it has allways been best to install CVI before any of the other drivers when not letting CVI install the actual drivers themselves.   I suspect it is possible to update the registry or some other config files to get the same result, but since I do not have the procedure for doing that, multiple installs has been the route I usually take.

Message Edited by mvr on 06-21-2006 08:23 AM

[LuisG]

Markus,

You bring up a good point in contrasting gpib with other drivers.

Typically, a driver installation consists of two parts: the core driver itself, and the CVI support files (.fp, .lib, .h, etc.). Nowadays, most drivers install their CVI support files together with the rest of their core files -- everything is installed when you run the installer from the Driver CD. However, some older drivers, like GPIB and VXI, for historical reasons install their CVI support files as part of the actual CVI installation. So that each version of CVI installs its own set of support files for this driver, regardless of which version of the driver is installed, or even if the driver is installed at all. In this scenario, you can use the driver from any version of CVI. But in the other scenario you can only use the driver from the highest version of CVI that was present when you installed the driver.

Each scenarios has its own advantages and disadvantages, which I can go into more detail later, if you like, but I can say that the single-driver scenario is a lot more common.

Luis