Why can I not open the sdk help file platsdk.col?

[spoli58]

Computer: generic PC P4@2.53MHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB HDD
OS: Windows XP SP1
NI software: CVI 7.0.0 (393) Full Installation (incl. SDK)

Synopsis: When I select Windows SDK help I get the following message: "Cannot open the file: c:\program files\national instruments\cvi70\sdk\help\platsdk.col". However the file IS in its place.

Additional info: cannot fix the problem by re-installing the software. May be a registry issue that the re-installation cannot fix.

I had no other problems with CVI 7 (and previous versions) until now. I know that some people got similar problems in the past (with different CVI versions) but I couldn't find an answer.

Can someone help please?

Stefan

[jlaney]

Hello,

I have seen this before in one occasion. If you had the CVI 7.1 Beta installed. This was an isntaller issue that caused only one version of the SDK help to work on the machine. If you have the 7.1 Beta installed you can get to the help from there.

Otherewise, I would like to know if you mean completely remove when you say "re-installing" or if you just use the installer repair mechanism. The repair mechanism will not work because the file is still on the system. You need to completely remove CVI 7.0 and reinstall it to get the help re-registered on the system.

Jeff
NI

[spoli58]

I think I know what the real problem is: I installed CVI 7 FDS (incl. Win SDK) over a previous CVI 6 BDS (no Win SDK) installation. I guess the CVI 7 installer got fouled by the previous installation where no WinSDK was installed. Possibly in the registry structure the WinSDK option is mentioned in the "Common" section (section available for all the NI software components regardless the version number). If the installer didn't update the WinSDK options because of the previous installation we have the explanation and uninstalling and reinstalling CVI 7 won't solve the problem. Only removing all the previous versions will fix this.

In this context, is there any way to keep the previous installations, but to have SDK correctly registered?

Thanks,

Stefan

[jlaney]

Stefan,

There are no common options between CVI versions for the SDK help. You should be able to have CVI 6.0 Base version reside SxS with CVI 7.0 FDS (w/SDK).

So you completely uninstalled CVI 7.0, rebooted the machine. Then Reinstalled CVI 7.0 and got the same error? If so I will try and recreate what you are stating and see if I can not reproduce this issue.

Did you ever have any version of CVI 7.1 on your machine?

Jeff
NI

[spoli58]

I never had CVI 7.1 installed on my machine, but I had installed the following:

a. CVI 5.0.1 FDS with SDK
b. CVI 6.0.0 BDS (105) without SDK
c. CVI 7.0.0 FDS (393) with SDK

CVI 5 and 6 worked fine -- I could access SDK from CVI 5 and CVI 6 gave me the correct message that WnnSDK was not installed. However CVI 7 seems to be problematic. I'll try to uninstall CVI 7 and re-install it again just to verify that nothing else is wrong (I've done this several weeks ago without success but in the mean time I applied several patches from Microsoft for Win XP).

I have to mention that I have another CVI 7 installation on a different machine (Win 2k) that works fine in a lab -- we bought a number of CVI 7 licenses at the same time. The computer
with problems is my home computer where I work sometimes when I'm not in the office.

Stefan