Installing LV85 and LV70 on same machine.

[LoKey]

June 30, 2008 - Installing LV85 and LV70 on same machine.

I am trying to keep LV70 functionality while upgrading to LV85.(prof dev suites)
I've read about toolkit and add on caveats (copy old LV addons to temp location, uninstall old addons/toolkits, install new LV, install (new) addons/toolkits to new LV, move old addons (copies) back to ...vi.lib in old LV) and this does not seem to be a huge problem.
I am also familiar with cross linking files and am willing to be dilligent enough to not do that.
Although adding LV85 functionality resulting in breakage (of pieces of) LV70 functionality wouldn't be catastrophic, attempting to maintain LV70 functionality at the risk of breakage of (any piece) LV85 would be catistrophic! 1 chance in 100 is about the most risk I am willing to take with this issue.
Being a cautious individual I decided to test the installation of LV85 over LV70 on an expendable machine.
A big problem I encountered when installing LV85, was that the DAQ and DAQmx directories in ...LabVIEW70\vi.lib\ were deleted! I had seen some warnings when installing the 85 NI-DAQ drivers (8.7.1) to do with unsupported versions yadda yadda. Unfortunately there were not enough details or implications to make these warnings meaningful. The LV70 platform seemed to work OK (even the addons and toolkits) except for the absence of ALL the DAQ and DAQmx functions that should appear in the NI Measurements sub-pallet. Being resourceful, I grabbed a copy of the DAQ and DAQmx dirs from another (LV70) machine and put them into the LabVIEW70\vi.lib that they had been deleted from. Unfortunately, (although they were 'findable' and 'functional' by LV70 vis) this did NOT make tham available in the (LV70) NI Measurements sub-pallet! Moving the DAQ and DAQmx dirs to LabVIEW70\vi.lib\addons does make them accessable (from function pallet) but the ICON hierarchy is pretty gruesome.

questions;
1) Is there a simple fix for the above problem?
2) Why are the DAQ and DAQmx functions (when they seem to work) being deleted from the older version of LabVIEW?
3) Am I just seeing the tip of the incompatibility iceberg?
4) If I install any version of NI-DAQ newer than 8.1 (the newest NI-DAQ that claims 'support' for LV70) on a machine with LV70 development platform will it break (DAQ and DAQmx dirs deleted from ...LabVIEW70\vi.lib) the development platform?
5) If I install any version of NI-DAQ newer than 8.1 on a machine that has executables (but no development platform) written in LV70 (or older) will it break any functionality?

I am giving this matter considerable effort because, although it may seem easy to "just dedicate another machine to LV70", I also have to consider expense and maintainability of OS, Office, Adobe, etc. etc. on a second machine, plus keeping all data current on multiple (yet one more) machines, not to mention the wear and tear on my body transporting multiple machines.

Comprehensive replies appreciated,
Paul Prew

[TCPlomp]

I would try the following:

Install 7.0 (Or leave) with daqmx.

Backup your LabVIEW 7.0 folder.

Install 8.5 with daqmx.

Restore 7.0 folder.

It is possible you cannot run the LabVIEW code but I think this is the best you get. You could loose MAX integration.

Ton

[Process_Systems]

I have Labview 6.0 through 8.5 installed on this laptop, and all seem to work ok. I have projects at customer sites that were developed over time in all of the versions. One precaution I did take was during the installation of each version of Labview, I installed them in separate sub-directories of the National Instruments sub-directory. This seemed to keep all the "extras" isolated from each other, and I didn't get any file deletion/overwrites. One other item, each version was installed in lowest to highest order, that is, 6.0, 6.1,7.0,, etc.

Hope this helps

Dave

[Ray.R]

I also have multiple versions installed.

I did notice with one toolkit that I had to copy it from LV7.1 to 8.2 folder.  It was happy afterwards..  I don't iknow why it "insisted" to install the toolkit into the 7.1 folder.. but it is all okay now.

[Brinoceros]

Hi Paul,

As you have discovered, there is no NI-DAQmx that supports both LabVIEW 7.0 and 8.5.  For your reference, here is the NI-DAQ & LabVIEW Version Compatibility for windows.  The farthest back support goes while still supporting 8.5 is 7.1 (so close!).  Also, you cannot have two different versions of NI-DAQmx installed on the same computer (this would cause conflicts).  This explains why the VIs seem to "disappear" from your 7.0; because 7.0 is not supported by NI-DAQmx 8.7.1.

If you were to have LabVIEW 7.1 and 8.5, you would be OK.  You can also use Traditional DAQ in both 7.0 and 8.5.  However, with your current LabVIEW versions you will not be able to use DAQmx in both.

You did mention that you were able to get some of the newer version DAQmx VIs to work in LabVIEW 7.0.  I can tell you that while this may in fact work, we do not support it.  This means that development/testing has not been done to ensure compatibility.  There is no way to know what may or may not work, and what kind of consistency you will get.  If your applications seem to work fine, then great, but consider this a "use at your own risk" clause!

Otherwise, it seems you have made all of the necessary considerations for toolkits, add-ons, etc..

I am sorry if this response isn't very good news for your situation, but I hope this information is useful and gives you some idea of what is going on and what you can do about it!