LabVIEW 13 and windows 10

[Dave_Thomson]

    I've been using a Dell laptop that came with W7 and which I upgraded to W10. I had LV 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2015 all working on that laptop with no obvious problems, though only 2015 is officially supported. (Actually, I'm not sure I used 2010 much since putting W10 on the laptop.

    I just ordered a new Dell laptop with W10 on it from the factory. I loaded up LV 2012. No problems apparent. Then I loaded 2013. It will no longer boot. I can get it to boot to safe mode, but in safe mode, LV refuses to uninstall. I've tried reverting to restore points, and all three of those fail. Windows has also repeatedly tried to fix itself on bootup, with no success.

    All I can think to do now is a factory revert and try again. Does anyone have any better suggestions that won't cause me to lose everything I've installed so far? Also, any insights into what might be wrong? I was going to put LV 8.5 and 2010 in VM's on the new laptop. I still use 2012 and 2013 often enough that I didn't want to do that, but I suppose I could. I just find it odd that it works on my old Dell with W10 but not on my new one. Maybe the new one has newer hardware with different drivers that conflict with LV?

Thanks for any insight,

     DaveT

[Bob_Schor]

According to NI published Compatibility tables, the "oldest" version of LabVIEW compatible with Windows 10 is LabVIEW 2015.  Not knowing this, I installed LabVIEW 2014 on my new Windows 10 machine and it seems to be working.  For all other (earlier) versions, I use a VM running Windows 7.

In particular, if you find that LabVIEW 2013 (not supported) crashes your Windows 10 installation, when you rebuild, don't install LabVIEW 2013 (unless you install it on a Windows 7 VM).

Bob Schor

[crossrulz]

I actually have a minimal install of LabVIEW 8.2.1 installed on my Windows 10 machine.  It runs with no issues.  Just know that it is not supported by NI.

[Matthew_Kelton]

When you installed LabVIEW, did you add drivers, or other extras?  If you installed drivers, it may be that the drivers were updated on your old PC when you installed later versions, and that is your issue.

It could still be a common file that gets updated as you install new versions.

You could try installing all versions without rebooting to make sure all files are updated to the latest version before rebooting.

[Dave_Thomson]

Thanks for the ideas, Matthew. Yes, I installed the whole mess of NI drivers, which definitely could be an issue. It might work to try what you suggested, but it would take a lot of time. And after all that effort, it may well not work. So I think I'll just play it safe and put all the pre-2015 LV's in VMs. I hope that doesn't slow me down too much...

DaveT

[Bob_Schor]

So here's how I did this without too much "slowing down".  First, create a "Base VM" with your chosen OS (Windows 7, 64-bit in my case), chosen utilities (Acrobat, subset of Office, my favorite text editor, search tool, Tortoise SVN, etc).  [I'm going to assume VM Workstation, so will say "Clone" which is VM-Speak for "Copy and prepare to run as a named VM"].  Clone this VM, call it, say, "LabVIEW 2013".  Install LabVIEW 2013.  Repeat for the other "flavors" (Versions) of LabVIEW that you need.

The cost, of course, is disk space, though you can be fairly clever with this.  My LabVIEW VMs are typically <60GB.  One advantage of Version-specific VMs is you are much less likely to open, say, a LabVIEW 2013 Project with LabVIEW 2015 (as that was the last LabVIEW you used, and you double-clicked a VI), accidentally save it, then your colleague (running LabVIEW 2013) says "I can't open it -- it says it's a Newer Version ...".  Trust me, I've been there ...

I'm currently working with a colleague who is running LabVIEW 2011 (I'm hoping she can upgrade to 2015 or, after August, to 2016).  Not having 2011 on my machine, I built a "pure 2011" VM.  We share code using a Subversion Repository, and so far have had no "Version" problems (though I did mess up before we started using Subversion and I built my VM -- the complaint in the previous paragraph was definitely addressed to me, and was my fault ...).  Been working fine since (he says from his Windows 10 machine ...).

Bob Schor