Opening a 2nd CVI application

[eward]

I have current GUI control system that i use to communicate through a serial port.  I would like to create an entirely different control GUI (that will also use the serial port) that I would like to develop and distribute seperately.  But i would like to be able to invoke the 2nd gui from the first (so it actually contains both control GUI's).  Im thinking there will just be a button on the first GUI that says "Launch FLASH settings GUI".  Is there a way to do this and what is the best way to do it?  Is building a dll for the 2nd gui the thing to do?  Everytime i would do a build of the 2nd GUI i should do a build of an exectuable for distribution and a dll for linking in the first gui?  The dll will then be called by the first gui.  I couldnt find any examples that show this exact thing being done. 

There are dll examples and this thread that is related, but am unsure if this is the route to take:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabWindows-CVI/Multipanel-and-or-Multiple-GUI-DLL/td-p/1646160

Thanks

[RobertoBozzolo]

While it is possible it call a separate application using System or LaunchExecutable or building it in a dll and calling it, you will have problems sharing the port: see this thread for informations.

A possible solution is to close the port before calling the second application and pass the number of the port to it: the called app will need to open the port, do its stuff and close it before returning. The caller will not be able to access the port while the second app is running (this should not be a problem in your environment).