Can ValueMotion be used with XP or should FlexMotion be used?

[jornie]

I have a pci-7324 motion control card. My OS is Windows XP and I have LabView 7.0 installed with the latest versions of FlexMotion and ValueMotion. I know ValueMotion has been discontinued and in valuemotion's documentation it doesn't mention use on Windows XP. Does ValueMotion Work with XP? Does FlexMotion work with the pci-7324? Which should I use?

[Jochen]

The latest ValueMotion driver 5.0.2 was released before Windows XP so this OS is not officially supported. You still can give it a try, though.

FlexMotion is not just another driver but it's a different driver for a different board family. You can identify if a board belongs to the ValueMotion or the FlexMotion family by its product name.

ValueMotion: 731x, 732x
FlexMotion: 733x, 734x, 735x

So there is no way to use your 7324 with the FlexMotion driver.
There are three options for you now:

1. You may be lucky and the 7324 is working under XP.
2. Run your PC with Windows 2000
3. Contact your local NI branch. They can offer you an inexpensive hardware upgrade to a PCI-7334 board that's the official replacement product for the PCI-7324. The PCI-7334
is superior to the PCI-7324 in terms of step generation and overall performance.
Here you can find more information about the PCI-7334:
http://sine.ni.com/apps/we/nioc.vp?cid=7191〈=US

Best regards,

Jochen Klier
NI-Germany

[Jim Laudie]

I wanted to add one more thing to Jochen's great response. If you are really trying to see whether or not the ValueMotion will work on XP, you should remove the FlexMotion driver from the computer. There are times where having both drivers on the computer at the same time has caused resource problems, etc. In your case, it seems that you wouldn't need the FlexMotion driver anyway.

As Jochen mentioned, we are moving away from the ValueMotion boards and driver. If you're interested in a better long-term solution, go with the newer board and FlexMotion. In fact our new drivers are called NI-Motion. This NI-Motion is basically the upgrade of the old FlexMotion. Hence, the ValueMotion is being phased out.

Best of luck with everything,

Jim Laud
ie
Applications Engineer, National Instruments
Austin, TX