Blank LED Indicator On Windows 7

[atlantest]

Hello,

I have a Windows Forms application that uses Measurement Studio Version 8.5.0.220. 

A customer just contacted us and stated that on one of the Tabs of the main user interface, The LED indicators are not displayed when using Windows 7. He was originally running Windows Vista.

He sent me the configuration file and I was able to reproduce the issue. However, when others run the same release on Windows 7, LED indicators are displayed correctly. So far it fails on Home Premium and Professional and has worked on Ultimate...although the sample size is quite small and I cannot come up with any reason why this should matter. I have tried changing the display driver, resolution, color depth, etc and nothing help.

Has anybody seen anything like this or have any ideas that I might try?

Thank You

[atlantest]

I have tracked the issue down to mesa.dll through google. I have included the nimesadll.msm in my setup project, and the file is placed in the shared folder on the target machine...however my application does not seem to locate it when run on Windows 7. If I manaully place the file in the application directory, the LED's are displayed and everything works great.

Any thoughts?

Thank You

[Ryan_T]

Hi atlantest,

Including the NIMesaDLL.msm merge module is a great step, but I was wondering if you have also looked in the Measurement Studio Documentation to search the help file on what else to include.  If you search for the phrase "Measurement Studio .NET Merge Modules" in the documentation and then select Local Help from the right hand side it should populate a new search with Measurement Studio .NET Merge Modules as the first hit.  Select this section and look at the NationalInstruments.UI section.  Mine states that you need to include the following merge modules but you should look in your help documentation to ensure that it has not been updated:

MStudioUIDesign.2005.msm
MStudioUI.2005.msm
NIMesaDLL.msm
niMetaUtils.msm

Have you included all of these?  You will also want to make sure that any deployment project that contains the niMetaUtils.msm merge module includes a SystemFolder entry and a ProgramFilesFolder entry in the Directory Table. To include this entry in Visual Studio, add a "System Folder" and a "Program Files Folder" as a Special Folder in the File System view of the deployment project.

If this does not help then I have a few questions for you.  Where is the mesa.dll being stored? Is it located on the clients machine under <National Instruments>/Shared/Mesa? Also, how many bits are the systems that do not work, 64 or 32?

[atlantest]

Ryan,

Thank You for responding.

I have read through the docs many times hoping that I had missed something. I have included all of the mentioned merge modules. After googling this issue I had also tried including a System folder in the installer...however this application has been deployed for over a year from this VS project and I have never needed it. Including the System folder did not help.

I can successfully install and execute the application on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. If I copy the dll's from the NI Shared folder to the application directory, everything appears to work fine.

It appears that it also runs successfully on Windows 7 machines where either the LV development system or the runtime is installed. However on a clean Windows 7 it cannot seem to find any of the dll's in the NI shared folder.

Is it possible that the dll's are not being registered? The application is unsigned...does that matter?

I have observed the issue running Windows 7 32-bit (both Home Premium and Professional).

Thank You again for your assistance,

Dan

[Ryan_T]

Hi Dan,

Can you please check the registry on the systems that are not working for a key called NISHAREDDIR.  You can do this by navigating to the start menu and selecting Run... Type regedit into the Open field and select Ok. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE » SOFTWARE » National Instruments » Common » Installer.  Single left-click the Installer directory and see if NISHAREDDIR shows up in the list on the right side.  This should be placed there by the installer using niMetaUtils.msm.  It could be that Windows 7 is not allowing permissions to add NISHAREDDIR to the registry of the machine in certain situations so it will be beneficial to know if it is in the registry of the machines that do not work properly. 

[atlantest]

Ryan,

There is only Installer/Parts and it is empty. Guessing thats not so good!

It is consistent on 2 machines (home premium and professional).

I tried to find a way to "Run As Administrator" the installer but did not see one...I am new to Windows 7 myself. I am an admin on the box but from what I see being Admin is not all that it used to be!

Thank You,

Dan

[Ryan_T]

Hi Dan,

There should be stuff inside the installer section, but it will not show up if you simply expand the section.  We actually need to single left-click on installer itself.  The following is a screenshot of the section I am refering to:

Can you check one more time to verify.

Thanks

[atlantest]

Ryan,

There is nothing there...here ya go!

When I add the NI Shared Directory registy value (on a different installation), all aspects of my application seem to execute properly.

Dan

[Ryan_T]

Hi Dan,

Could you please try to run the installer as administrator.  You can accomplish this by right-clicking on the installer and selecting to run as... and then select administrator.  You should not have to do this because the installer should elevate itself, however, this will be a good troubleshooting step for us.

[atlantest · Accepted solution]

Ryan,

That works. The registry entries are correctly created.

In fact, doing so made me realize that before I was using the .msi file to perform the install. The .msi file does not provide the "Run As Admin" option when right clicked. So after it worked using the setup.exe I ran some experiments and anytime that I ran from the setup.exe the registry was populated correctly (I made sure to delete the NI branch after each uninstall).

I apologize for wasting your time. I have used the msi file for years now on all OS until Windows 7 and never had an issue. The ironic thing is that the issue was driven by a customer report...so I am guessing that they are doing the same thing. 

Thank you again for your help.

Dan