Why are the NI-DAQmx driver packages so Huge?

[etcal]

Re NI-DAQmx 8.8 Windows 2000/Vista x64/Vista x86/XP Hardware Driver

I have a cDAQ-9172 with 8x 9211 Modules.

I simply want to calibrate the modules using a 32bit Windows XP PC.

However it seems absurd that I have to download a 1.1GiB driver file just to do this!

I've got to download NI-DAQmx 8.8 for Windows 2000/Vista x64/Vista x86/XP

Why have NI bundled the 64bit version with the 32bit version?
No-one else on the web does this, If a user requires both versions, give them the credit of thinking for themselves and downloading each version separately.

Is there any other way I can calibrate the NI 9211 without downloading the world?

[John.P]

Hi etcal.

Unfortunately the DAQmx driver is only supplied in this format.  The reason for this is to give our customers the flexibility and ability to 'plug and play' with any of our hardware products without the need for additional drivers.

The driver package supports both 32 and 64 bit operating systems, again this is simply to make the driver package as easy to use as possible and is not a huge contributor to the size of the file.

If the issue is with the size of the download you should have received the driver on CD or DVD when you purchased your cDAQ chassis.

If you have any more specific questions regarding the driver please let me know.

Best regards,

John P

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

[cpaero]

I and everyone else I have ever known to use NI products are also frustrated by this!

I have only one NI daq, and only plan to ever have one NI daq.  I also happen to know that I'll only be using my daq with a 32-bit OS.

Keep the unbelievably large driver set as a recommendation to general users, and allow your advanced users the option to download a minimal driver set!  Some users are sheep and need to be herded.  Some are not.

Thanks anyway for your insight.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Is the minimum driver available still too big?

[The Pope]

PLEASE!!!!

Could you please split the drivers for each product?

This should have been done years ago.

I use the USB-6009 box to read some data and set some DIO lines.

1 GIG driver??? I agree, it's absurd!

We are considering a switch to another competing brand because of this.

No National Instuments products will be used in new development until this problem is solved.

[Dennis_Knutson]

First, I disagree that there is a problem to be solved. Second, I and most others (considering how few complaints there are actually are), prefer a single driver. My life would be much harder if I had to make sure one of a half dozen different drivers were installed on the pc's where our codes runs and where there are slightly different DAQ cards.

The size of the installer is large but you do not have to install the complete package and you will not be installing both 32 and 64 bit versions. And, as has been mentioned, there are separate and smaller run-times that you can install.

p.s. Just curious but what other companies with a large variety of DAQ cards provide separate drivers. Other competitors that I've looked take the same approach of a single unified driver.

[Seth_B.]

Greetings all,

Dennis is correct that including support for all DAQmx devices, as well as both 32- and 64-bit operating systems is not the largest contributor to driver size.  To see this, compare the sizes of the various iterations of the DAQmx driver:

NI-DAQmx 9.0.2 Full - 1322 MB

This includes the VIs for LabVIEW and the functions for C and .NET, as well as several hundred example programs between the environments.  It also includes SignalExpress and MAX to help make the development process easier.  If you don't install SignalExpress or support for Application Development Environments (ADEs), the size on disk is substantially smaller.

NI-DAQmx 9.0.2 Configuration - 563 MB

This does not include the ADE support.  Using this version, we include the necessary driver files to run pre-built applications, but none of the LabVIEW VIs, C or .NET functions, or example programs.  You'll notice that once support for all the different programming environments is removed, the driver loses 700 MB of size.  This version still includes MAX and the necessary plug-ins to create tasks and configure devices.

NI-DAQmx 9.0.2 Core - 140 MB

This version does not include MAX.  At this point, this just includes the low level files necessary to run pre-built DAQ applications. This includes support for every device supported in DAQmx and support for Windows 2000, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows Vista 32- and 64- bit, and Windows 7 32- and 64-bit.

The primary size of the NI-DAQmx driver some from the tools necessary to write programs using NI-DAQmx.  Once the program is written, if it includes all of the configuration steps within the built executable, NI-DAQmx programs can be run with a 140 MB driver.

I hope this clarifies,

Message Edited by Seth B. on 10-22-2009 11:10 AM

[roadway]

Was there ever a resolution to this issue? I see the driver package is now something like 6GB. I have a new computer and I need to debug a problem with an old DAQPAD-6016. Downloading the drivers is taking longer than debugging the problem. Complete waste of my time. For someone who doesn't deal with the NI devices/SW on a regular basis, it is difficult when I come to the website just trying to get the SW for device panels. Perhaps there is a reduced version somewhere, but it is not obvious.

[Dennis_Knutson]

What driver are you installing where you see that size? The latest DAQmx: http://www.ni.com/download/ni-daqmx-9.9/4707/en/ is 1.3 GB. On the download page, there are also links to the much smaller runtime versions. This is resolute to complaints of large driver size as noted above.

I don't think your device is even supported by DAQmx. Are you sure you shouldn't be using traditional DAQ?

[roadway]

I followed the logical path from the main website "Support and Services" ->  "Download Drivers"-> "Go to NI drivers" -> "Ni Device Drivers" and then clicked on the latest one. That resulted in me having to download 2 approx 3G files. (Please don't tell me it isn't going to work now.)