Distributed Applications in Windows 7

[shew82]

The latest copy of NI Instrumentation just arrived on my desk with its headline article by Elijah Kerry's discussing Test & Measement Systems in Windows 7. The timing of this was pretty much perfect as I was just in the process of planning a new version of a software package that is developed in LV 2009 and distributed worldwide as an EXE/Installer...

This article prompted the following question:

Does anyone know of any particular gotcha's for built applications and EXEs that are particular to Windows 7?

FWIW, some of the things I have already implemented that helped with the Vista transition are:

• My application's settings are stored in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\... section of the Windows Registry
• Templates, and user manuals (read-only) are stored in Program Files
• Data, databases, etc are stored in a folder created in <System Root>, e.g "C:\Test Data" (it was requested that a folder used that was the same folder regardless of the logged in user and that did not have a long, complicated / hidden path)
• Backups of key database are kept in a user's App Data folder e.g. "C:\Users\ShaunH\AppData\Roaming\Bla\Bla\Bla"
• All default path names are calculated using the new LV 2009 "Get System Path" VI and these can be changed by users/administrators by adjusting keys in the Windows Registry (for when an admin may want to put things in a different folder, such as a network share).

[Jim_Kring]

Hi Shaun,

VIPM is an application written in LabVIEW (8.2.1) that supports Windows 7 and is distributed world-wide (to literally thousands of users).

And, we've got a JKI Software Blog article in the works about what we had to do to support Windows 7 (and Vista).  We've just been so busy lately that we haven't totally polished it up.  I'll ping the author to see if he'll have time soon to get it published.

Cheers,