Vista - what's known/planned?

[Ian.W]

I've seen NI's general articles on Vista, but I'd appreciate some insight (even tentative) into the current situation to help in my planning. Signed hardware drivers will clearly be a big change and on the critical path for most of us, but beyond that I have a couple of questions:

• In this thread I see reference to "a Vista compatibilty update for CVI".  Which version(s) will have updates? (Or can NI at least rule in/out certain releases?)
• Are there currently known issues that guarantee that one can't build Vista-compatible apps until the updates are released?  Perhaps linked to certain features like the Internet Library, ActiveX, COM components, distribution kits, etc.?  An incomplete list of functionality known to require the update would be helpful.

Thanks,

Ian

[JonathanN]

Hi Ian,

We are currently looking into developing a version of LabWindows/CVI that will support Windows Vista but that's all we can mention at this point.  When we have more information we will notify all of our customers about this update.  Until then, you could try developing LabWindows/CVI applications on Windows Vista but this will not be supported.

Best Regards,

[Ian.W]

Thanks, Jonathan. I understand.  I guess it was worth a try

Let me try another angle. I'm not too concerned about support for Vista as a development platform. However I do have hundreds of target platforms in diverse environments (some of which will inevitably have Vista) that will use one of our apps in Q1/Q2 2007. Among other things, it redistributes a COM component, uses the Internet Library, and uses ActiveX to export to Office apps.

I'd encourage NI to create a place where known problem areas associated with Vista target platforms are posted, particularly with respect to higher-level features that come with CVI. 

Also, I'd invite users to post here if they find particular problem areas with Vista as their target machine - if only to help NI identify the required content for the update!

Thanks all,

Ian

[JonathanN]

Hi Ian,

I would have tried the same thing as well if I was in your place.

As of now, the best place to post your problems related to LabWindows/CVI and Vista would be the forums.  We would definitely appreciate the feedback. The more the merrier.

Best Regards,

[Ian.W]

Ok, I can't contain myself. I just had to bump this one up again.

If anyone has had issues (or not) installing LabWindows/CVI-developed apps onto Vista target machines, I'd love to hear about it.  (I'm much more patient about developing on a Vista machine.) By the relative silence on the topic I'm assuming that either there are very few issues, or hardly anyone is doing it.  I'm just not sure which. My main app will soon be running into all types of Vista installations(100's), from home to corporate and all versions of Vista. So far so good, but the test set is small.

Any pointers to potential trouble areas would be particularly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ian

[JonathanN]

Hi Ian,

As you know the current version of LabWindows/CVI (8.1) doesn't support Vista.  I haven't seen too many people try and run 8.1 on Vista so I can't vouch for other people.  Since this is a new OS, some issues have arisen and thus we are working on a maintenance release of LabWindows/CVI that will be Vista compatible. 

As the normal response goes, I can't give you any release dates of when this version will come out but it should be coming out soon (of course that is a general term as well). 

Best Regards,

[Ian.W]

Thanks, Jonathan. No doubt there are some tricky issues to resolve!

For the record, here is the NI page on Vista, and here is a particularly interesting (to me) white paper that flags just the type of thing I've been fishing for: potential problem areas, in this case the blocked access to C:\Program Files, C:\Windows, and HKLM in the registry. 

--Ian