Brandon,
You are taking the correct approach to finding out programmatically what devices are present in your system. I have a couple questions/troubleshooting suggestions. What version of NI-DAQ do you have on the laptop? Is it the same version as on your desktop machine? You might want to get the latest version (NI-DAQ 7.4) at the link below. Have you been able to successfully use any other DAQmx C functions? Maybe try DAQmxResetDevice(), or try a shipping example, for example, any in the following directory: C:\Program Files\National Instruments\NI-DAQ\Examples\DAQmx ANSI C. FYI, for information on C functions, there is a DAQmx C Reference Help file that installed into your NI-DAQ directory when you installed NI-DAQ.
Also, what OS is on your laptop?
Here is the link to the Multifunction DAQ Driver
http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/webcategories/85256410006C055586256BBB002C128D?opendocument&node=132060_US
-Alan A.