Launch correct version of LabVIEW

[Al1234]

If have multiple versions of LabVIEW installed and work with different versions for different customers. Currently the last version of LabVIEW launched is the version that the OS launches.

Can't a LabVIEW launcher program have a look at the VI or project version and launch the best choice of LabVIEW version installed instead?

Al

[Darin.K]

Certainly aggravating. I particularly hate it when I use the recent file shortcut in the Win7 start menu LV X -> Some VI.vi and it ignores the version and still launches the most recently used version. See here: http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Version-aware-LabVIEW-launcher/idi-p/920853

[Al1234]

Oops! didn't spot that one in my search. Kudos for Intaris.

TimmTheEnchanter's comments seem to kill the idea...

[Darin.K]

TimmTheEnchanter's comments seem to kill the idea...

In the old days of new releases every 2.5 years, I would probably have 2 versions on any given machine, 3 tops and the third was usually just there for legacy support.  These days NI is pushing a new version every year so this problem is getting much more severe.

If NI is going to push new versions annually, make it difficult to tell which version you are running, even harder to determine which version a VI was last saved in, and create a crapshoot every time you open a VI from the OS, they can't kill this idea.  Or can they?

[jcarmody]

Here are two tools that might be interesting to you (both by hooovahh):

LabVIEW Shell Launcher

LabVIEW Tray Launcher

[AristosQueue (NI)]

There's two use cases here, and they're completely incompatible, and there's no way to have any options to rectify them.

In your case, you want the version of the VI to decide which LV to open.

In my case, I would be very frustrated if I had a LV opened and launched and I used the OS to open another VI and it launched another LV. To me, the version of LV that last saved a VI has *nothing* to do with what version I want that VI to be opened in now. You may ask, why don't you just use ctrl+o to open the VI? Frequently I've used the Windows Explorer to find the VI I'm interested in, and rather than copy/paste the path from the Explorer into LV, I just double click the VI from Explorer. [On my Mac, copying the path is nearly impossible to do, so this behavior is even more important to me.]

Each of these use cases has value. But there's really no way to support both of them.

[JasonD_at_UML]

My workaround has been to create an Alias (Shortcut) for each version of LabVIEW, renamed with the version, so "LabVIEW" becomes "LabVIEW 2009", and another "LabVIEW" becomes "LabVIEW 8.6" and another "LabVIEW" becomes "LabVIEW 2010". By placing the Aliases in my Dock, I can at least launch the version I want before a double click the VI to open.

I won't help much if you're running versions simultaneously, I just quit and relaunch, one instance at a time.

It would be nice to have an alternative though...

[G-Money]

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Version-aware-LabVIEW-launcher/idi-p/920853