Is there a cook book method for creating an exe out of Teststand ?

[Clint Eastwood]

I'm trying to port Teststand to a target machine. I want to use LV 6.0 Operator Interface on the target machine also. EXACTLY what steps do I have to preform to get the Operator Interface, all my VI's that Teststand uses in my particular application and all the engines I need to run what was written on the Developmental station onto the Target machine. I couldn't find the operator interface in LV manual and the Teststand book was terrible to follow.

[Elaine_R.]

Hello Clint -

The unfortunate problem with the manual is that it has to cover all possible variations of a deployment scenario, and as a result it gets a little jumbled. There is usually a fairly point-by-point document available on the web, sadly it is down this week for edits for new TestStand 3.0 material but I will attach below a word documents with the contents of the tutorial valid for a TestStand 2.0.x / LabVIEW solution as this may help.

In general, the super-short list of events goes as follows:

(1) Deploy TestStand Run Time Engine (use the Wizard in the tools menu)

(2) Use your 'testexec.bld' file (in the OI's folder)as a short cut in LabVIEW for creating a functioning EXE and installer for your interface. Not that this works best if yo
u have a default interface, you'll have to handle any additional files yourself.

(3) Carry your code and support files (this can be integrated into step 1 if you want) however you want.

Naturally the issues arise when you have custom components or nonstandard situations, read the attached doc below for the 'long list' that covers the details.

If you're using TestStand 3.0 there are new tools that can make this process faster/easier but it sounds as though you're working with a fairly finished system so I won't go into those right now. If there is a particular part of the process you are concerned about, feel free to post again and we will focus on just that.

--Regards

Elaine R.
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/support

[Clint Eastwood]

Thanks Elaine I'll give that a try. Maybe I can take this one step further. What about using LV6.1 Op Interface to call TS that has LV6.1 vi's, CVI AND MATLAB modules ? Do I need to copy the .m files ( and any "C" relayed files) to the target ? Is there a similar process for packaging CVI as there is for "Assembling vi's for dist.." in Teststand ?

[Elaine_R.]

Hello Clint -

Sadly, in TestStand 2.0.x there is no handy tool for bundling cfiles and DLLs, (TestStand 3.0 is another story) but yes, in your case you're going to have to comb through your sequence files and see what you need.

Take your matlab files, the c-files that call them, any support DLLs those c-files will require as far as libraries/linking go. If you've been running your CVI adapter in 'external process' mode, you'll want to toggle it to 'in process' and test things before you deploy to make sure that linking and such works. Also, if you haven't built DLLs out of your C code for you step modules, you may want to in order to protect yourself from tricky-to-debug link errors that can crop up with C or .OBJ files from time to time.


Good luck,

Elaine R.
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/support

[Clint Eastwood]

Elaine,
Is there a course that addresses just deploying TS to target machines ? I have a ton of questions ( I have no idea what 'external process mode' vs in 'process is' !!) and run into a ton of errors. ( ie error 1322 the folder...). I found the solution to this only to encounter another. Its like I take one step forward and 2 back. Most of the time I can't find a solution and have to turn to an App Engr or Discussion Forum. Mngmnt here is getting disgusted with the process. I can't believe its this difficult to deploy my code to a Target Machine. Any solutions to resolve this would be welcomed. Can someone from National come in and walk me through the process?