Cannot find distribution "NI-DAQ 8.0" (datasocket distribution)

[MMichele]

Hallo all,

I am building a distribution kit using datasocket and I checked the datasocket bullet in the Edit distribution menu but when CVI is building I am prompted:

Cannot find distribution "NI-DAQ 8.0"

The location does not contain the correct distribution.

I've tried with all the orginal CDs (I am using CVI 8.0.1). I imagine I am doing something weong...

Thanks in advance,

Michele

[Mert_A.]

Hi Michele,

You may be prompted for the NI-DAQ 8.0 distribution (or more generally, any distribution) if it contains a version of a component which is not available on any of the other distributions CDs you have.  What probably happened is that you installed CVI (and possibly the driver CD) at some point, then sometime later installed something from the NI-DAQ CD.  This may have upgraded a number of components, including underlying support components (for example, NI MetaUninstaller or MDF Support) which must be included in the distribution you are now trying to build. Even if you only select DataSocket and the CVI Run-Time Engine from the list of available component, you may still be including a number of other components by dependency. Because the distribution builder will only distribute the version of a component that is currently installed on your machine, it may have to copy components from a number of different distributions in order to get all the right versions.

You will have to provide the NI-DAQ CD (not the driver CD) when you build your distribution. If you want to avoid all this CD switching in the future, you can check the box on that dialog to cache any needed components on the hard drive.

Hope this helps.

Mert A.
National Instruments

[MMichele]

Dear Mert,

thanks for your replay. But what is the NI-DAQ CD I have to provide the builder? I only have what NI sent me: CVI CD + 3 Device driver reference CDs and it seems that no one of these is the right one. How can I manage to build it?

thanks

Michele

[Mert_A.]

Michele,

The message you are getting indicates that the NI-DAQ 8.0 distribution was at some point installed on your machine.  You can verify this by checking your registry.  Open regedit, then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\National Instruments\Common\Installer\Distributions.  This key will contain subkeys for every distribution installed on your system.  The names will be incomprehensible (package GUIDs), but if you arrow through them, you should see one with the Title value "NI-DAQ 8.0".  The DistRoot value will tell you where it was installed from (probably D:\ if installed from a CD, though sometimes this might also be a network path).

There is another possible reason you may be prompted for the DAQ CD instead of the ones you have.  If the DAQ distribution is the largest distribution that has all the right versions of the components needed for your distribution, it may be selected as the source.  In order to find out why you are being prompted for the DAQ CD, I'd like to have you create and post a debug log.  The instructions for creating this log can be found in this thread.

Mert A.
National Instruments

[MMichele]

Hi Mert,

thank you very much for helping me out of this problem. I found E:\ (the CD rom) for the register key NI-DAQ 8.0. I send as attached file the log file as you indicated.

Regards,

Michele

[Mert_A.]

Michele,

The issue is that the distribution builder is trying to include DataSocket from the NI-DAQ CD (everything else included is already cached on the hard drive).  Ideally, you have this disk and can provide it when propted -- at some point, someone used that disk to install some software onto your system.  If you do not have access to this disk, things get harder.  You will have to manually edit a system file in order to make the distribution builder pull DataSocket from a different distribution.  Open C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\MDF\Bin\MDFInfo.xml and insert the following text just before the </MDFInfo> tag at the end of the file:

<manifest productID="{8C271AA1-EABD-4057-84D6-302C86A95E1A}">
  <distribution DistPkgGUID="{ACA9CBF3-C9BC-4C11-A95E-E1BCF8F60D12}" GUID="{D2B6583D-4632-4308-9417-E339F7141079}" language="9" version="8.0.1.356" volume="1">
      <distTitle>NI LabWindows/CVI 8.0.1 Full Development System</distTitle>
      <distLocation>E:\</distLocation>
      <productPath>Parts\</productPath>
    </distribution>
  </manifest>

This assumes you have the CVI 8.0.1 installer on a CD.  If you just downloaded and installed it from the web and have not burned it to a disk, I recommend you burn it (put everything at the root level -- i.e. E:\setup.exe).

I do NOT generally recommend making edits to system files like MDFInfo.xml.  You may want to back the file up first, just in case.  In the future, the CVI environment will have this ability to change distribution sources built into it, so you won't have to get your hands dirty with manual file edits if this happens again.

Let me know if run into problems or have any more questions.

Mert A.
National Instruments

Message Edited by Mert A. on 07-11-2006 02:48 PM

[MMichele]

Dear Mert,

thanks again for the help, but I still could not solve the problem.

I am sure that the NI-DAQ CD was never provided to my system. I downloaded the evaluation version from NI and than I registered it with serial when I purchased the licence. So I cannot provide the builder with the CD. 

Regarding the other solution: I could not find the file MDFInfo.xml  at the location you specified and anywhere in my machine...

Thanks,

Michele

[Mert_A.]

Michele,

I'm sorry for the confusion.  It turns out that file is not created until certain settings need to be stored in it, and in your case, the need has not arrisen.  Regardless, I have come up with another solution which is actually a better fix for the problem: delete the NI-DAQ 8.0 distribution registry key that I referred to in one of my earlier posts.  Once the key is deleted, the distribution builder will be forced to look for another distribution from which to include DataSocket.  This approach can only be taken if the exact same version of the product in question is available on another distribution that has been installed to the machine.  This is true in your case.

Once again, let me know if you have further problems.

Mert A.
National Instruments

[MMichele]

Dear Mert,

the problem was solved with your last suggestion. Thank you very much!

with regards,

Michele