Vision Development Module & Vision Acquisition Software for Multiple Versions of Labview

[OguzKahraman]

Hello. I installed Labview 2020 and VDM and VAS and all vision tools that I need, I can use. After that I had to install LabView2015 SP therefore I deleted all packages regarding vision and reinstall again which are proper for LabView2015 SP. However when I open LV2015, I cannot see any Vision and Motion tools while, I can see Vision and Motion tools in LV2020. Is it possible to have both version in the same computer? How can I use Vision and Motion tools for both versions ? Thank you in advance. 

[rolfk · Accepted solution]

LabVIEW Toolkits only have support for the same LabVIEW version and 3 prior ones. So with your 2020 and 2015 your are basically to far away from each other. VDM 2020 won't install any support files into 2015 (in fact no support for anything earlier than 2017) and VDM older than 2020 certainly won't install anything into LabVIEW 2020.

Theoretically you can install LabVIEW 2015 and then VDM and VAS 2015 up to 2018 (I would go for 2018 here) then install LabVIEW 2020 and before installing VDM and VAS 2020, renaming the LabVIEW 2015 installation directory so that the 2020 doesn't see the files already installed in your 2015 directory and can't remove them. Then after all installation is finished rename the 2015 directory back to what it was. 

BUT: This is not supported by NI and if your computer behaves badly or eats your hard drive after that, it is your and your problem only! So beware!

The actual Vision libraries are compiled DLLs that get installed system wide (which is why they can only exist in one version on a system). The LabVIEW bindings that each installer installs into the various LabVIEW directories are specifically adapted to those DLL interfaces. While these interfaces do not usually change a lot between versions other than adding new functionality, NI never documented and published them fully and is therefore free to change them at any time if the need arises. This can mean that the VIs that got installed into LabVIEW 2015 through the older installer, might not be compatible with the DLLs that get installed with the last installer. And that can cause crashes or spurious errors that are hard to debug and track.