Updating NI-RIO driver on a cRIO from a computer that don’t have LabView installed

[Terje]

I have developed an application for a customer. Before starting, I made sure my cRIO was updated with the latest BIOS and drivers using MAX. Now that the application is finished we need to get it deployed on the customers RIO. This is a RIO that is already installed and I don’t have access to it. Previously we have done this by uploading the executable using FTP by the customer. We wanted to use the same procedure, but as this RIO has an older version of the RIO drivers, the application won’t run. The customer has MAX installed so I asked them to download the latest RIO drivers from NI and update the cRIO. However, the latest version of the software doesn’t show up as an option in MAX. As can be seen from the following image, the latest NI-RIO driver is installed on the computer, but is not an option when updating the RIO.

 

Is this because they don’t have LabView and LabView Real-Time installed?

How can we get this RIO updated?

Would a solution be to make an image of my RIO and upload that to our customer’s cRIO?

Terje

[dwisti]

The correct way to handle this would be with the Real-Time Target System Replication tools.  I don't doubt that MAX with RIO installed should be able to handle the update but I've never tried it.  IMHO, customers should never have to install MAX or Labview.  There should always be a way for OEMs to do everything MAX can do.  I wrote my own application (.exe) for my customers to be able to apply updates/patches to cRIOs with the Replication tools.  They don't ever need to install MAX.

[Terje]

Hi dwisti and thanks for your reply.

It is tempting to use MAX as we then avoid making a host application, which we would have to support.

Is it possible to just copy the drive from my cRIO an upload the contents to the customers cRIO using FTP?

The BIOS version might not be the same. Can this be a problem?

Also, when deleting all the files from a cRIO, is it possible to corrupt the device so that it becomes inaccessible? (Is the FTP server loaded from the BIOS?)

[dwisti]

If your going the MAX route then I would tried installing NI-RIO on a computer without Labview.  Installing RIO should install MAX with everything you need to update the cRIO drivers.  Again, I've never done this but (I would think) it should work.  What version of Labview Real-Time are you using?  Here's a link to the latest version of RIO.

NI-RIO 3.5.1 - PharLap, Real-Time OS, Windows XP/7/Vista, VxWorks

I have never tried copying cRIO files and uploading to another manually.  I've always use the replication tools because they perform the correct operations in the proper order (installl mode, deleting files, uploading, rebooting, etc.)

If you delete all the files from cRIO, you should be able to boot into safe mode which still has a FTP server.  I've never actually tried to brick my cRIO but I don't think deleting all the files will cause a problem.

[Terje]

I’m using Labview Real-Time 2010. MAX and RIO is already installed on a computer without Labview, but we will try a reinstallation.

Anyway, we have decided to go for a solution using the replication tools and make a host application. I think it’s unfortunate that this functionality isn’t included in MAX.

Thanks for all your help dwisti.