Visa Library Installation

[mick24]

Hi,

I previously had full version of NI-VISA (NIVISA1400full) installed on my PC (Win7).  The only requirement I have is to be able to use the Visa library to write instrument drivers in Python.  With the full install, I was accessing the library at the following location "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\National Instruments\\MeasurementStudioVS2012\\DotNET\\Assemblies\\Current\\NationalInstruments.VisaNS.dll".  I now want to prove out that the runtime version of the NI-VISA install will provide what I need also (Visa library access).  I have selected both the '.NET 4.0-4.5.1 Runtime Support (IVI)' option and the '.NET 4.5 Runtime Support (NS)' from the 18.5 Runtime Engine install.

My questions are:

1: Where are the libraries installed? Either NI-VISA or VisaNS.

2: I removed the visa32.dll file from the C:\WINDOWS\sysWOW64 before the installation but this was not re-installed with the Runtime version installation.  What will install this file and how does this file differ from full version NationalInstruments.VisaNS.dll?

Thanks,

Mick

[NIRebecca]

Hi Mick, 

I understand this has been resolved though contact with Technical Support but I wanted to provide the information here too in case anyone else needed it!

VISANS.dll has been migrated to NationalInstruments.Visa.dll. Only NI-VISA 14.0 or earlier will includes the VisaNS library. Our guide on NI .NET Deployment has been updated to reflect this. Binary locations are:

NationalInstruments.VisaNS.dll 

• 32-bit binaries: <Program Files (x86)>\National Instruments\MeasurementStudioVS20xx\DotNET\Assemblies\Current 
• 64-bit binaries: <Program Files>\National Instruments\MeasurementStudioVS20xx\DotNET\Assemblies (64-bit)\Current 

NationalInstruments.Visa.dll is:

• 32-bit binaries: <Program Files (x86)>\VI Foundation\VISA\Microsoft.NET\Framework32\v4.0.30319\NI VISA.NET 17.5
• 64-bit binaries: <Program Files>\IVI Foundation\VISA\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\NI VISA.NET 17.5

There will be some differences between VisaNS and VISA .NET. National Instruments VISA .NET Library has an attachment, ninetvisa.zip, on right side of this page, which includes a CHM help directory file that explains how to use the VISA .NET library. 

There is also mention of the visa32.dll and visa64.dll provided by VISA Shared Components (as opposed to nivisa64.lib which is written by National Instruments) . The 32-bit compatibility DLLs are supposed to live under C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ and the 64-bit DLLs are under System32. 

The visa32.dll on 64-bit's system32 directory contains entry points that are simply forwarders to the respective visa64.dll entry points. It was created so that users may use the same library name for both 32-bit and 64-bit applications. 

Thanks,

Rebecca

[mick24]

Thanks Rebecca