What is LabVIEWs binary compatibility?

[Southern_Cross]

I know that if I save a VI in LabVIEW 2018 I can no longer open the VI in LabVIEW 2017. What about service packs? If I open a VI in LabVIEW 2018 SP1 and save it can I still open it in LabVIEW 2018?

Is there an ni.com page that explains the version compatibility?

[Kyle97330]

Code made with 2018 SP1 can be opened with vanilla 2018, though I'm not sure if this was always the case if you go back to 2015 or earlier.  However, there is a "Save as" option that allows code to be saved to a previous version.  Some new functionality won't work though, so it's not 100% reliable.  2018 can save back to version 8.  To save back before then, you need to get an older version that can save back further.  Here's a handy chart.

Also, as a general rule, any version of support software associated with a year (i.e. DAQmx version 18 is for 2018, NI-MAX 16 is for 2016, etc.) supports LabVIEW from that year and the 3 prior years.  So you can install DAQmx 18 and it will work with 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 LabVIEW.

[RavensFan]

SP1's and and original release are fully interchangeable for all versions of LabVIEW going back to at least version 7.1.

[altenbach]

Code from the same major version are interchangeable, irrespective of service pack or patch level. In terms of compiled binary code, VIs get recompiled if needed automatically (e.g. PC vs Mac vs Linux,, 32bit vs 64bit.).

It still helps to upgrade everything, for example if you have an sp1 exe, but run it under the non-sp1 version of the runtime engine, you could run into bugs that got fixed in the service pack.