Does National still sell Labview Test Executive?

[hspec]

We have an application here based on the NI Labview Test executive (V4.0). Recently the ISA NISCOPE card packed it in and a new PCI version was purchased. The card did not work in the app and when the engineer installed the new driver, it automatically removed the old driver - and still didn't work.

I would like to know what our options are at this point. Here are a few questions:

1. We need to use the new PCI NISCOPE card and driver. Since the PCI driver only works in a newer version of LV than what they are using, I would have to use the latest Labview we have (7.1) and convert the vis. My question is does NI still sell the Labview Test Exec? If yes, what version would work with 7.1?

2. If National does not sell the Labview test exec, I have a copy of labview V5.1 and the corresponding Test exec. I guess I could use this to rebuild the app, but would the PCI driver work with this?

I'm looking for the simplest (cheapest) way to support an old project. Has anyone else had to deal with this problem? 

Thanks for your help,

Howard Spec

CMC Electronics

[tbob]

Since TestStand's debut, they have stopped supporting and selling the old Test Executive.  The cheapest option is to rebuild in LV5.1 and using the old Test Exec.  Are you sure the PCI drivers will only work with the newest version of LV?  If so, you may have to upgrade to LV 7.1.  I'm not sure if Test Exec can call LV 7.1 vi's.  Give it a try.  If not, you will also have to upgrade to TestStand (recommended if your old project is exepected to go on for some length of time), or you will have to build your own test executive with LV 7.1 (a real pain).  You could build a test exec rather simply by using a state machine.  Queue up all your test calls (or use an array), dequeue one at a time and use a case structure to choose which vi to call.

[EdDickens]

A couple general questions first.

What version of LabVIEW are you running and what OS is this running on.

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We have an application here based on the NI Labview Test executive (V4.0). Recently the ISA NISCOPE card packed it in and a new PCI version was purchased. The card did not work in the app and when the engineer installed the new driver, it automatically removed the old driver - and still didn't work.

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Just a guess here, but I would think the new driver doesn't support your old version of LabVIEW. Support for older versions is dropped as newer versions are released. All companies do this because it gets to be too expensive to support everything.

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1. We need to use the new PCI NISCOPE card and driver. Since the PCI driver only works in a newer version of LV than what they are using, I would have to use the latest Labview we have (7.1) and convert the vis. My question is does NI still sell the Labview Test Exec? If yes, what version would work with 7.1?

2. If National does not sell the Labview test exec, I have a copy of labview V5.1 and the corresponding Test exec. I guess I could use this to rebuild the app, but would the PCI driver work with this?

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No, LabVIEW Test Exec is not available any more. It's been replaced with TestStand.

Your cheapest sollution would be to try your LabVIEW 5.1 and it's Test Exec. I'm not sure how far back the Scope driver supports, but it would be worth a try.

The best sollution would be to go ahead and upgrade to the latest  verion of LabVIEW and TestStand. Your LabVIEW application would probably need a bit of tweaking after the upgrade, but you'd have to completely rewrite the Test Exec part in TestStand. At least this way you would future proof yourself from this happening again anytime soon.

Ed