DAQmx VISA and EXEs under LV8

[LakeLogic]

Please clarify / advise: In building exe's in the LV8 era, if your application calls DAQmx or VISA vi's, should one list the DAQmx and VISA folders as "Dynamic VIs and Support Files" and build them into the application, or is it better practice to NOT list them there and to separately install them on each target computer along with the application exe?

[Dennis_Knutson]

Listing the DAQmx or VISA folders as dynamic or support files should not be done. Doing so will not actually install the necessary hardware drivers. Doing so would not have worked in earlier versions of LabVIEW either. What is simpler now is the ability to add the different hardware driver installers. You select Build Specifications and select New>Installer. In the category window, you select Additional Installers and add what you might need like DAQmx, NI-488, NI-VISA, etc. This is optional. The DAQ, GPIB, whatever, board comes with a CD when the board is purchased and the end user can run this when the board is installed in their system. The problem with that is that there could be a version conflict between the driver that you used to develop and debug your program and the driver that the end user installed.

[LakeLogic]

---

@howie Lake wrote:
Please clarify / advise: In building exe's in the LV8 era, if your application calls DAQmx or VISA vi's, should one list the DAQmx and VISA folders as "Dynamic VIs and Support Files" and build them into the application, or is it better practice to NOT list them there and to separately install them on each target computer along with the application exe?

---

Thanks, Dennis. Your reply is exactly what I was looking for. If I understand correctly, separately installing DAQmx (or whatever) on the target machines from distribution CDs would be an alternative to creating an installer for DAQmx under the Application Builder, right?

Secondly, for those applications that use only 2 or 3 vi's out of the entire DAQmx (for example) set, the need to install the entire DAQmx package seems a bit extreme. Can you pick and choose vi's from the set to limit the size of the install?

[Dennis_Knutson]

Using the distribution disks is an alternative.

Only the VIs that are used are part of your application distribution. The size of DAQmx full installation includes documentation, MAX, development support, etc. Not sure about the distribution CD and I've only had 8.2.1 for less than 2 weeks after being stuck at 7.1 forever, but when you choose to include DAQmx as an additional installer in LabVIEW, you have the choice of 6 different install types. There's the full version, and 5 different run-time versions. They remove combinations of the develpment support, documentation, MAX, etc.