Installing NI-RIO for Use with Multiple Versions of LabVIEW

[dwisti]

Different versions of NI-RIO only support certain versions of Labview, see link below.  You can not have Labview 8.5.1 Real-Time & 2011 Real-Time co-exist on the same PC because NI-RIO 4.0 only supports up to 8.6.1.  Wouldn't it be nice if you could install multiple version of NI-RIO just like you can have multiple version of Labview?

NI-RIO and LabVIEW Version Compatibility

[TutuAjayi]

The NI-RIO driver doesn't install side-by-side, but it does support multiple version of LabVIEW.
From the link you provided..

"As a general rule-of-thumb, a given version of NI-RIO supports the version of LabVIEW that it was released with, as well as the three previous service pack versions for a total of four supported versions."

From your example, the newest NI-RIO version that supports 8.5.1 and 2011 SP1 is 3.6.1. You wil however not be able to leverage any new feature introduced to in NI-RIO post 3.6.1

[dwisti]

If you look at the link I posted the chart shows that 2011 only supports NI-RIO 4.0.  And 8.5.1 is not supported in NI-RIO 4.0.  Since I have to support older installations of existing Real-Time systems in 8.5.1, I'm forced to have 2 installs of Labview (on different machines or XP mode) if I want to use 2011 & 8.5.1.

[ErnieH]

Support for older systems is becoming a bigger issue for us when we decide to upgrade our systems. If the updates create compatibility problems with our existing systems, why upgrade? I find it odd that we would have this problem on NI's own equipment. I have 3rd party boards that the driver will work for LabVIEW 6 through LabVIEW 2011 with no issues. This seems to be getting worse every year.