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LabVIEW 2016 SP1 expected release date?

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I could not find a better forum board for this question, so I rise it here. Just out of pure curiosity, what is the expected release date of service pack 1 for LV2016 (SP1)?

LV2013, LV2014, LV2015 got their service packs in the following year March (LV2012 got SP1 even earlier, in December 2012).

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Hi Blokk,

 

last week I complained at my local NI rep about bad communication behaviour of NI this year. We postponed some projects because we also expected release of LV2016SP1 around end of March - most often I install just SP1 packages before starting new projects…

 

I got this answer: There will be no LV2016SP1 because of new date for NIWeek. There will be LV2017 in end of May or June…

 

It's a shame SSP users (for long years now!) didn't get notified of this change. I would have expected this for paying 3k€ per year!

 

(Ruf doch mal Fr. Mangold an und frag sie (oder beschwere dich…) zu diesem Thema! ;))

Best regards,
GerdW


using LV2016/2019/2021 on Win10/11+cRIO, TestStand2016/2019
Message 2 of 32
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@GerdW wrote:

Hi Blokk,

 

last week I complained at my local NI rep about bad communication behaviour of NI this year. We postponed some projects because we also expected release of LV2016SP1 around end of March - most often I install just SP1 packages before starting new projects…

 

I got this answer: There will be no LV2016SP1 because of new date for NIWeek. There will be LV2017 in end of May or June…

 

It's a shame SSP users (for long years now!) didn't get notified of this change. I would have expected this for paying 3k€ per year!

 

(Ruf doch mal Fr. Mangold an und frag sie (oder beschwere dich…) zu diesem Thema! ;))


That is very strange! It means there will be no LV2016 SP1 at all?

They just release LV2017 and integrate the LV2016 bug fixes into LV2017? Does this make sense? I mean, LV2017 will bring in new features, thus new possible bugs...And LV2016 users will stay without fixes?

 

(Danke für die info! Aber Ich schon spreche Deutchs nur ein bischen! Shame on me! :D)

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Accepted by topic author Blokk

As bad as it may sound, recent releases of LabVIEW did not add a lot of new breaking features that could be considered a potential hazard for projects. Not having worked with the 2017 Beta I can't even speculate on new features in this release, but if it is similar to previous years, there is not a big difference in if this is a 2016 SP1 or 2017 release.

Besides your comment about users of 2016 being left out in the cold because there won't be a 2016 SP1 is factually incorrect. NI releases regularly patches between software releases that fix a number of specific issues. There are already two for 2016 with the latest being 2016 f2. And while we have a policy to use only the SP1 releases for customer projects, there really wasn't much of problem with even the non SP1 releases for the last 3 or 4 versions of LabVIEW. We still use mostly 2015 SP1 f7 for most customer projects and typically do not change LabVIEW versions in any ongoing project. We are going to evaluate 2017 when it gets released and may decide to use it.

And I don't quite understand your being upset that much. You state that the integration of 2016 bug fixes into 2017 is bad and should be instead done in a seperate SP1 release. But what do you think happened in the past with bugfixes introduced between an SP1 and the next release?

Rolf Kalbermatter
My Blog
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It just seems like they abandoned LV 2016 and used the NI Week thing as a convenient excuse to move on.

Bill
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Proud to say that I've progressed beyond knowing just enough to be dangerous. I now know enough to know that I have no clue about anything at all.
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It's not like each LabVIEW release has been a really independent software package in the last few years. The principle was that a new release would add a few features while the SP1 would concentrate on bundling any intermediate bugfixes and create a complete installer package from that, instead of the small incremental patches that were released in between. As such the difference between a 2016 SP1 and a 2017 is pretty marginal.

And the issue is in fact more the opposite of what you assume. They want to have something to present at NI Week and a new LabVIEW release sounds better than a service pack release. It's not as exciting to talk at a keynote about a bug fix that fixes an obscure error in some corner of LabVIEW, than new and exciting features such as a redesigned icon Smiley LOL

Basically LabVIEW 2015 (SP1 or not), 2016 (SP1 or not) and 2017 are all gradually improved versions of exactly the same software package. The whole release naming is much more a marketing issue than a technical issue anyways.

Rolf Kalbermatter
My Blog
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Thanks for the detailed information! Personally, since i am an "academic" user, for me it does not make any difference either using version 2015 or 2016 or 2017 (with sp or not). I was only curious about why is this change in releases, and the motivation...

So thanks again clearing up the story!

 

edit: and i know that marketing is very important, and people want always new shiny features every year (do they?). Actually I would be still happy if NI releases a new version every second year. I feel a 1 year cycle is a bit too much pushing... but of course i have zero experience with such business, we live in a fast world...

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I thought the whole idea behind the service pack was not to introduce new features, but to clean up the base release?  You can't tell me that LV 2016 was so flawless it didn't need a service pack.  😉

Bill
CLD
(Mid-Level minion.)
My support system ensures that I don't look totally incompetent.
Proud to say that I've progressed beyond knowing just enough to be dangerous. I now know enough to know that I have no clue about anything at all.
Humble author of the CLAD Nugget.
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Message 8 of 32
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@billko wrote:

I thought the whole idea behind the service pack was not to introduce new features, but to clean up the base release?  You can't tell me that LV 2016 was so flawless it didn't need a service pack.  😉


I think his point was that the regular patches (f1, f2, ...) have the same purpose as the service pack. As I understood?

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Oh, NI's official explanation here.

Bill
CLD
(Mid-Level minion.)
My support system ensures that I don't look totally incompetent.
Proud to say that I've progressed beyond knowing just enough to be dangerous. I now know enough to know that I have no clue about anything at all.
Humble author of the CLAD Nugget.
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