How To Safely Completely Remove LabVIEW 2018

[Bob_Schor]

With the introduction of NI Package Manager in LabVIEW 2017, doing a complete removal of LabVIEW has become a little bit more difficult, with some dire consequences if not done correctly (I know, as I've had to rebuild two Windows 10 PCs and have yet to have a "local" LabVIEW 2017 system for testing and development).

I've been running LabVIEW 2018 that I've installed on a Windows 10 VM.  However, I also need a LabVIEW 2017 system for some work.  What I decided to do was to clone the LabVIEW 2018 VM, rename it to LabVIEW 2017, remove LabVIEW 2018 completely, and do a "fresh" install of LabVIEW 2017.  

Before completing this task, I placed a Service Call to NI to ask how to remove NI Package Manager -- the documentation for this is pretty obscure, and took both of us working together about 25 minutes to find it.  But the process did seem to work, and I'm currently installing LabVIEW 2017.

Here are the steps.

1. Open Control Panel, go to Programs and Features, and find National Instruments Software.  Click on it, which starts NI Package Manager.  Select all Programs (check box at the top).  Note that NI Package Manager is not selected.  Choose Remove.  Reboot when done.
2. Repeat Step 1.  You may notice that you still have multiple "Features" installed.  These are (probably) Device Drivers.  Uncheck "Programs" (I think that's what the button says) and the other Features will become visible.  Again, select all, Remove, and Reboot.
3. Again open Programs and Features.  You should still see National Instruments Software and NI Package Manager entries.  You might also see VISA entries near the end of the (alphabetical) list, but should see nothing else that screams "LabVIEW" at you.  If this is the case, you are now ready to remove NI Package Manager.
   1. Click NI Package Manager.  You use it to remove itself.  Read the warnings that NI puts in, and be really sure that you want to do this.  Proceed when ready (or sufficiently brave).
   2. When finished, you may or may not have "lost" the NI Software and NI Package Manager entries.  I recall that I may have needed to open one or both of these (wasn't taking careful notes), but with a few clicks, both entries disappeared.
4. If you have (as I did) VISA entries still in the Programs and Features list, you can safely uninstall them by double-clicking and choosing Uninstall.  Again, you may have to do it more than once (they are inter-linked in some strange way).
5. Reboot.
6. I chose to remove the NI Folders from Program Files, Program Files (x86), and Program Data.  Before doing so, I checked and verified that there did not seem to be anything "vital" there.  I did not touch the Registry.

LabVIEW 2017 (32-bit) appeared to install correctly.  I installed LabVIEW Vision, DAQmx, and VISA.  I tested it by getting VIPM to install the OpenG Toolkit, which also succeeded.

I'm going to leave this post here for comments.  There's an Idea Exchange entry from Someone Who Should Remain Anonymous asking for a "better Uninstall Tool" -- this Post isn't exactly "it", but it might serve as the "Solution".  If nothing better surfaces in a week, I'll go ahead and mark this Post as the Solution.

Bob Schor

[MichaelBalzer]

Wow, that is some process. Thanks for the write-up.

For completeness, some NI components also have DLLs stored in Windows' Global Assembly Cache. Last I checked these were not uninstalled when I removed NXG (haven't tested LV2018).

A 'nuke from orbit' NI cleanup tool would be welcome (and already has my kudo).

[asukumari]

Hello,

I have never used default methods to uninstall any heavy software that leaves a footprint on various places (registry, etc). I have always used pro-versions of uninstallers such as REVO UNINSTALLER that makes sure you can go deep down to registry levels and other left over files/ shortcuts and delete them as well. Of course this entirely depends on the kind of application you are trying to uninstall but at least you can see what you are keeping and what you are throwing away.

- asukumari

[Bob_Schor]

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@asukumari wrote:

Of course this entirely depends on the kind of application you are trying to uninstall but at least you can see what you are keeping and what you are throwing away.

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As the Title of the Post clearly states, the Application I'm trying to uninstall is (all of) LabVIEW 2018.  With the introduction of the NI Package Manager in LabVIEW 2017, the process to uninstall LabVIEW became (shall we say) "fraught".  There have been numerous reports of failed "uninstalls" requiring reformatting of the C: drive and a complete rebuilding of Computers (this happened to me, twice).  Using a Third-Party Uninstaller for a system as complex as LabVIEW is probably a good way to get a similar "really clean system" (following the mandatory reformat of C:).

Prior to NIPM, I have build, uninstalled, rebuilt, uninstalled, etc. on multiple machines multiple times, using Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 10 (and maybe Windows 8?).  I've been burned, so I was looking for a "safe" way to do this, found one that works, and have posted it for the Community.

Bob Schor

[Yamaeda]

Hmm, i wonder if this is related to my experience of trying to upgrade NXG from 1 to 2, i Think it was. I used the NIPM several times to try to uninstall stuff until finally was able to install the newer NXG and get it running. It sure has some similarities.

/Y

[Teds]

Bob, first off, great post. I followed this when my LabVIEW 2018 when belly up and was successful in reinstalling it.  Repairing it would not work.    I have a couple additional notes on Step 3.

"" 3.) Again open Programs and Features. ..

1. Click NI Package Manager.  You use it to remove itself.  Read the warnings that NI puts in, and be really sure that you want to do this.  Proceed when ready (or sufficiently brave).
2. When finished, you may or may not have "lost" the NI Software and NI Package Manager entries.  I recall that I may have needed to open one or both of these (wasn't taking careful notes), but with a few clicks, both entries disappeared.  ""

In my case, 1. Removed NI Package Manager (heeded to the warnings to make sure that all software that had been installed using NI Package Manager was already removed).  Rebooted.

Then navigate to Add/Remove Programs and to be surprise an NI Software entry is still present.  I clicked on it to change the features and surprisingly it opened another NI window with the Add/Remove functionality pre NI Package Manager.   Within this window there was additional 10+ entries of NI software that had not yet been uninstalled when the Package Manager was removed.   I chose to question why this was the case and simply removed all these and rebooted.

Gotta love the complexity and interdependencies of the NI software! 😀

~Teds

[billko]

I'm afraid to ask, but... what's the procedure to uninstall pre-2017 versions of LabVIEW, but keeping post LV 2017 versions intact?

[Bob_Schor]

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@billko wrote:

I'm afraid to ask, but... what's the procedure to uninstall pre-2017 versions of LabVIEW, but keeping post LV 2017 versions intact?

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You are right to be afraid!  Selective removals are (in my limited experience) problematic, and can be time-consuming, particularly if you end up anyway doing the "safe" method of "Remove Everything, reboot, and (re)-install what you want".  [The more extreme version of this method, which I had to do after a bad decision to use a third party uninstaller, started with "Reformat the C: Drive, reinstall Windows 10, ..."].

Quick technical point -- you mention "uninstall pre-2017" and "keeping post LV 2017", which leaves LabVIEW 2017, itself, in a (shall we say) "precarious" position.

I'll assume you want to keep LabVIEW 2017 and all more recent versions/modules/toolkits.  One way would be to go to Add/Remove Programs and Features, choose National Instruments Software, and pay attention to the Version number listed for each Software Component.  Most (but not all) components will have a Version number that seems "obviously" linked to a LabVIEW Version, like "16.0.1", but some (Command Line Interface) may have "2.0".  In addition, it seems to me that I've noticed that a few NI Products (don't quote me on this -- it's something I noticed in a recent installation but didn't write down) seem to be able to "reach forward", so that a Version 18.5 component might not have a corresponding 19.0 copy, yet can be run from LabVIEW 2019.  As I said, I'm not 100% certain about this, but it's another way that a "selective uninstall" could go awry.

If you are going to do the "Full Uninstall/Selective Re-install" route, before starting, take note of the external packages and other goodies that will probably also disappear when you do so (such as packages loaded via VIPM or NIPM, such as from the LabVIEW Tools Network) -- you'll probably want to include them in the Re-install.

One could ask, why bother to remove older LabVIEW Versions?  One answer is "I didn't make my VM large enough ...".

Bob Schor

[billko]

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@Bob_Schor wrote:

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@billko wrote:

I'm afraid to ask, but... what's the procedure to uninstall pre-2017 versions of LabVIEW, but keeping post LV 2017 versions intact?

---

You are right to be afraid!  Selective removals are (in my limited experience) problematic, and can be time-consuming, particularly if you end up anyway doing the "safe" method of "Remove Everything, reboot, and (re)-install what you want".  [The more extreme version of this method, which I had to do after a bad decision to use a third party uninstaller, started with "Reformat the C: Drive, reinstall Windows 10, ..."].

Quick technical point -- you mention "uninstall pre-2017" and "keeping post LV 2017", which leaves LabVIEW 2017, itself, in a (shall we say) "precarious" position.

I'll assume you want to keep LabVIEW 2017 and all more recent versions/modules/toolkits.  One way would be to go to Add/Remove Programs and Features, choose National Instruments Software, and pay attention to the Version number listed for each Software Component.  Most (but not all) components will have a Version number that seems "obviously" linked to a LabVIEW Version, like "16.0.1", but some (Command Line Interface) may have "2.0".  In addition, it seems to me that I've noticed that a few NI Products (don't quote me on this -- it's something I noticed in a recent installation but didn't write down) seem to be able to "reach forward", so that a Version 18.5 component might not have a corresponding 19.0 copy, yet can be run from LabVIEW 2019.  As I said, I'm not 100% certain about this, but it's another way that a "selective uninstall" could go awry.

If you are going to do the "Full Uninstall/Selective Re-install" route, before starting, take note of the external packages and other goodies that will probably also disappear when you do so (such as packages loaded via VIPM or NIPM, such as from the LabVIEW Tools Network) -- you'll probably want to include them in the Re-install.

One could ask, why bother to remove older LabVIEW Versions?  One answer is "I didn't make my VM large enough ...".

Bob Schor

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I was (still am) seriously contemplating just "letting them be".  I'm thinking that the disk space I recover isn't worth the hassle.  Besides, even if it appeared to go right... how could I really know...?

[Bob_Schor]

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@billko wrote:

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I was (still am) seriously contemplating just "letting them be".  I'm thinking that the disk space I recover isn't worth the hassle.  Besides, even if it appeared to go right... how could I really know...?

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Yep, that's what I would do, too.

BS