Using USB-6009 without installing DAQmx

[Glyn]

Hi there,

I was hoping to use a few USB-6009's on a pc, through a .NET or unmanaged C++ application without having to install the complete DAQmx package. Can someone suggest how this may be achieved?

I imagine both the windows drivers specific to the device and the interface assemblies/dlls are required.

In the .NET scenario, I can see I'd need the assemblies installed by default to:

    National Instruments\MeasurementStudioVS2003\DotNET\Assemblies\Current

but where can I find the windows drivers for the device?

For an unmanaged C/C++ app, are there DLLs installed elsewhere (akin to the assemblies) that I need to be aware of?

Thanks,

Glyn

[Glyn]

Ok, just saw the \NIDAQ830\Products folder in the extracted installer...

I would have thought I'd get the windows driver support by installing subpackage:

   NI-DAQ_INF_files

but no such luck.. Installs fine but the windows driver wizard still doesn't pick up the installed device - must be getting close though (?)

Also: NIVcppCommon, NIVcppCommon2005, MStudioCommon, MStudioCommon2005 for the other support I suppose.

[TheWoost]

Hi Glyn,

There will more than likely be additional files necessary than just those included in the \NIDAQ830\Products\NI-DAQ_INF_files directory.  If you are concerned with minimizing the installed components to only those you absolutely need, when going through the standard NI-DAQmx installation procedure you can customize the components that are installed.  If you have not already seen this feature in the installer, please see the screenshot of the installation window in the NI-DAQmx installer that allows you to do the customization.

Did you originally have the NI-DAQmx Base drivers installed on this system for use with the USB-6009?  If so and your USB-6009 is still not visible in MAX, it could be very likely that the device is still configured to use the NI-DAQmx Base driver.  Please refer to the KnowledgeBase article here for more information on how to correct this.

Regards,
Andrew W
National Instruments

[Glyn]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your reply. I was really trying to avoid having to deal with the monolithic installer to support (internal) deployment of relatively lightweight applications to various PCs.

IMO, the benefits of the flexibility provided by a massive all-in-one installer like DAQmx are largely offset by the inconvenience and overhead of installing/using it in this context.

Is there a subset of the feature list provided by the installer which provides for installation of the windows driver(s) only?

Alternatively, do you happen to know in which cab the relevant drivers are packaged? I guess I could hunt through these myself, but if you (or anyone else) know already off-hand it'll save me some time.

Thanks,

Glyn

[Glyn]

Oh, and btw no I'm not using DAQmx base... I'm familiar with the driver selection in MAX, but this relates to installation on a 'clean' PC (no NI products of any sort previously installed).

Thanks,

Glyn

[Tom_W_[DE]]

Hi Glyn-

If you do not require development support, you could consider using one of the NI-DAQmx Run-time Engine versions.  Each version provides a successively smaller installer by removing certain driver features.  More info about the specific features of each runtime version can be found on the download page.

Hopefully this helps-

[Glyn]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the info regarding the Runtime versions of the DAQmx sofware. Definitely better suited for deployment than the development package but at 180+mb are still a pretty big and cumbersome.

I'd still rather be able to install the windows driver for my hardware independentally of 100s of MBs of application software (as is possible with most other windows-compatible hardware). Though in the absence of a solution of this nature (or at least until I get around to hunting through the CABs and MSIs) I guess I'll go with the RT packages.

Thanks again for your assistance,

Glyn