New 2026 Q1 Feature: Headless operation and Expanded Docker Container Support

[Christina_R]

With LabVIEW 2025 Q3, we published a Docker image for LabVIEW for Linux.

With LabVIEW 2026 Q1, we are adding support for LabVIEW for Windows. In addition, LabVIEW will have a "headless" mode (i.e., without UI), which it will use in the Docker container.

When LabVIEW is running in "headless" mode, it will not require any license activation. This feature will enable easier setup of CI/CD pipelines.

There is a Beta Docker image (LabVIEW 2026 Q1 Beta for Windows) now available at nationalinstruments/labview - Docker Image.

[pawhan11]

It might be worth considering to add nipkg to env path for this image:

[pawhan11]

The same for vipm -  it would be nice to have it installed and configured as part of this image

When installed manually VIPM does not work out of the box:

[avogadro5]

The image comes with a "LV26Q1" NIPM feed included that doesn't seem to exist currently 

FROM nationalinstruments/labview:2026q1-windows-beta
WORKDIR "/Program Files/National Instruments/NI Package Manager"
RUN ./nipkg update

yields

Step 3/3 : RUN ./nipkg update
 ---> Running in fcceb6b92d7a
Error -125951: Failed to update one or more feeds: 
        LV26Q1

 and failed build.

Exciting feature, the potential is HUGE.