Saving as older version, then resaving as same version

[dougbockILT]

I have found this rather anoying lately and hope there's an easy workaround.

I am in the situation of having to use two different PCs for LabView, one running LV2015, the other LV2016.

If I work on the LV2015 machine I can save my work and simply reopen it on the LV2016 machine without a problem.
If I then want to save again, the work is saved as LV2016, meaning that next time I am on the LV2015 machine I can not open it, due to backwards-compatibility issues. So far so good, this all makes sense.

I can however on the LV2016 machine "save for previous version". This creates a new folder with the vi in the version I selected (LV2015) inside it. If I then work on this new vi in LV2016 and save it, it gets saved once again as LV2016, rendering it again useless for LV2015...

Surely there must be some workaround for this...

I want to create a vi in one version (LV2015), and when opened in a newer version and saved there, still saved for the original version. Of course this will only work if the desired version is the oldest one, for it be opened in all newer versions.

[crossrulz]

The work around is to install LabVIEW 2015 on the machine that currently has LabVIEW 2016.  Then you just always work with 2015 for this project. The two version can be installed side-by-side.  You will need to reinstall the 2016 drivers in order for them to be usable in LabVIEW 2015 (that will be super quick as it will just need to install the LabVIEW 2015 support).

[dougbockILT]

Thanks for your answer crossrulz.

This is unfortunately not an option. My (employers) funds are insufficient to provide further licenses...

[crossrulz · Accepted solution]

Your LabVIEW 2016 license will cover any previous versions.  So you can have LabVIEW 2015 and LabVIEW 2016 installed on the same machine using the same license.

[RavensFan]

Save always saves in the current version.

Save for Previous  always saves in an older version that you choose.

The solution is to always be sure to use Save for Previous when in 2016.

[Bob_Schor]

Regarding Crossrulz's suggestion to install LabVIEW 2015 on the computer running LabVIEW 2016, I'm such a creature of habit that I recall the "rule" (admittedly from several years ago) that you had to install LabVIEW versions in "chronological order".  I've done multi-version installations in recent years, and if I find I want to install, say, LabVIEW 2015 on a PC that has only LabVIEW 2016, I've always first removed all versions of LabVIEW and then started installing, oldest version first.

Admittedly, this can be a significant Time Sink.  It would definitely be a Good Thing if this restriction (which I'm sure I've experienced, but maybe 3-4 years ago) had been lifted ...

Bob "Always Prepared to be Enlightened" Schor

[crossrulz]

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@Bob_Schor wrote:

Regarding Crossrulz's suggestion to install LabVIEW 2015 on the computer running LabVIEW 2016, I'm such a creature of habit that I recall the "rule" (admittedly from several years ago) that you had to install LabVIEW versions in "chronological order".

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This has not been a problem for me in many years when it comes to just LabVIEW.  For example, I installed LabVIEW 8.2 after installing 2016.  The only issues are with the drivers.  As I stated before, you may need to reinstall the latest drivers to add the support for older versions of LabVIEW, assuming your older version of LabVIEW is compatible.