What is NI Device Monitor?

[notaclue]

I cannot find any documentation on the NI Device Monitor that sits in the system tray.  I don't need it (?) so I want to get rid of it.  But how do I restart it if I do need it?  I cannot find a shortcut installed in the menu and no reference to it in any of the settings.  A search of NI website doesn't even come up with a hit.

[Darren]

From what I understand, the NI Device Monitor is a service that will launch certain NI Software if an NI USB device (like a USB DAQ device) is plugged in.  I'm no expert on this stuff, but in the past, when there's been a service running on my machine, I go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services and change the service from Automatic to Disabled.  If I need the service in the future (like in your case, if you ever buy an NI USB DAQ device), change the service back to Automatic.

-D

[sensei]

Device Monitor can be restarted by going to Start Menu->National Instruments->NI-DAQ->NI Device Monitor.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

I am also plagued by the dialog, but I do not have anything called "NI Device Monitor" in my list of services. Is "NI Device Loader" the same thing? Here's my services list (the ones that start with "NI"). How many of these could I disable and still have my USB-6002 work?

[Sam_Sharp]

Ah, NI does love installing lots of services! I think I count about 25 on my machine. I think 'NI Device Loader' is the one you're looking for. As for how many you can disable - if you're just using USB DAQ devices - probably most of them!

What is the NI Salt-Master though?! (I'm just curious...sounds cool!)

[AristosQueue (NI) · Accepted solution]

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Sam_Sharp wrote:

What is the NI Salt-Master though?! (I'm just curious...sounds cool!)

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I honestly have no idea. I'm not even sure who to ask... I had to debug an issue recently that required installation of everything and the kitchen sink, so it could've come from just about anywhere within NI's portfolio. 

[Hooovahh]

I sorta want to complain a bit.  I mean are all 25 services needed for what I'm doing?  Almost certainly not.  Am I sure any one of them can be disabled safely and still have my hardware and software function properly?  Almost certainly not.

I assume that under the right circumstances each of these services are needed.  But not knowing when I can and cannot disable them is a bit of a pain.  I can think of no other suite of software that installs so many helper things that are just always running.  Now maybe the performance hit of running these services are all minimum, but I just don't know, and the OCD in me wants as lean of running PC as possible (within reason).

[Sam_Sharp]

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@Hooovahh wrote:

Now maybe the performance hit of running these services are all minimum, but I just don't know, and the OCD in me wants as lean of running PC as possible (within reason).

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Indeed - my home PC is a gaming PC and I really don't want all these services running on it which has kind of forced me to do my home-development in a VM. I can't imagine it does anything good for boot-times etc.

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

"NI Device Loader" is indeed the one.

-AK2DM

[AristosQueue (NI)]

Unfortunately, the description says, "Loads and initializes device drivers for some types of National Instruments hardware devices. If this service is stopped or disabled, these devices will not function."

I don't want the devices to not function. I just don't want the "What do you want to do with this device?" dialog popping up every morning.