Cannot find 32-bit program file for library

[johnoc]

Yesterday I installed LabWindows 2013 SP2. 

I am now receiving the following Library Load Errors when running LabWindows.

"Cannot find 32-bit program file for library '.ini-Style Files For Multibyte Strings'.

I did noot see these errors prior to installing SP2.

[LuisG]

That instrument is installed by TestStand. It should be installed in this location (assuming you have TestStand 2014, if you have an older version, then adjust the path accordingly):

      C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\TestStand 2014\API\CVI\mbinifile.fp

Its program file should be installed in this location:

      C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\TestStand 2014\API\CVI\mbinifile.c

Are both of these files present for you?

Luis

[johnoc]

I have TestStand 2013 loaded on my machine. The two files mbinifile.fp and mbinifile.c are in the appropriate directory. As I stated I did not get this error in CVI 2013 SP1.

[LuisG]

In CVI, select Instrument>>Edit and then try to reattach the program file, to see what happens:

You should see the following confirmation dialog:

If it does, then you should be able to confirm that it's attached by pressing the Show Info button.

Even if this works, it doesn't explain why CVI failed to attach on its own, but it fails it might us a clue as to why.

[johnoc]

The Edit item under Instrument is grayed-out.

[LuisG · Accepted solution]

Is the Edit item greyed out because you don't have any instruments loaded (i.e. you don't have any instruments listed above the Load item in that menu)? This TestStand instrument that you've loaded (minifile.fp) isn't loaded by default in CVI, so CVI must have tried to load it because a project you opened had a reference to it (either a direct reference, or a reference to another instrument that in turn depends on this one). Did you see this error message when you opened a project that had this .fp in it? Do you still have that project loaded?

Regardless of how you loaded it, can you load it now, by pressing Instrument>>Load and selecting mbinifile.fp from that folder? When you do that, do you still see the same error, or does it attach the program file to it, as expected? You can confirm that the program file is attached by editing it and pressing the Show Info button.

[johnoc]

Thanks Luis!

I had placed the instrument (minifile.fp) in the Libraries folder in the IDE and assumed that because of that the instrument would load automatically when I loaded the project, or opened CVI. Apparently that is not a correct assumption.

If you are allowed to customize the Libraries folder, why is that the instrument you place in that folder while cutomizing it do not load automatically? 

[LuisG]

Ah, okay. I hadn't realized that you had added this .fp to the Library menu. That explains why the Instrument menu was empty.

It's perfectly fine to customize the Library menu by adding an .fp file to it, in Libraries>>Customize, but you cannot move the .fp file to a different folder. These .fp files have dependencies on other files that CVI assumes to be present in a location that is relative to the location of the .fp. If you move the .fp file to a different location without moving all the other associated files, then CVI can no longer find those files.

When you customize the Libraries menu, you need to do it by selecting the .fp file from its original location (in this case, C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\TestStand 2014\API\CVI\mbinifile.fp).