What software versions are needed to work with cRIO 9012/9004, and how to reinstall them?

[helenhnhn@gmail.com]

I’m currently working with cRIO 9012 and cRIO 9004, and I’m having some issues getting the necessary software set up. Here’s a summary of my situation:

1. Software Versions Used: I started with the latest versions of LabVIEW( LabView 2024,labview FPGA 2024).

2. Connection: I successfully connected to the cRIO devices, but the software list was empty.

3. Software Addition: I tried to add software, but I only had a few options, and none of them seemed useful. Unfortunately, I deleted the software that was already installed and now I’m not sure how to reinstall it.

Questions:

1. Compatibility: What are the required versions of LabVIEW, LabVIEW Real-Time, and other necessary software to work with the cRIO 9012 and cRIO 9004? Are these older cRIO models compatible with the latest versions?

2. Reinstallation: How can I reinstall the software on the cRIO? Is there a specific procedure or set of steps I should follow to restore the necessary software components?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

[rolfk · Accepted solution]

This are old cRIOs running Pharlap ETS (cRIO-900x) respectively VxWorks (cRIO-91x) as real-time OS. NI has discontinued them long ago (ca 2013 or earlier) and according to this document also discontinued support for them with LabVIEW 2016 (for the cRIO-900x) and LabVIEW 2018 SP1 (for the cRIO-901x). There is some inconsistency in the supported version information for the cRIO-900x as I found one list that claims NI-CompactRIO 17.0 was the latest to support them, which would mean that LabVIEW 2017 should be usable too.

Reinstalling them on Windows 10 should be possible if you have the installer available. However you can only download old installers if you have an active license subscription or Software Support Contract with NI. People without active license can only download the latest version. Reinstalling them on Windows 11 is unsupported although I installed LabVIEW versions back to 7.1 on Windows 11 with only minor difficulties. But I wouldn't really recommend it if you want to go smoothly about this.

Definitely use some virtual machine for this! Installing multiple versions of LabVIEW on the same system is a tricky adventure but can be usually done if you install from oldest to newest. But installing older versions after you had a newer version installed is generally begging for a lot of trouble, to the point where the only viable solution usually is to wipe the whole system and start reinstalling everything.

[Bob_Schor]

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@rolfk wrote:

Definitely use some virtual machine for this! Installing multiple versions of LabVIEW on the same system is a tricky adventure but can be usually done if you install from oldest to newest. But installing older versions after you had a newer version installed is generally begging for a lot of trouble, to the point where the only viable solution usually is to wipe the whole system and start reinstalling everything.

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When LabVIEW 2018 came out, I attempted to install it on my Windows 10 system that had LabVIEW 2015 through 2017 installed.  I was doing Real-Time and Vision stuff, so I also installed support for them.  This was very early in the use of VIPM (I think 2017 was the first year), and it just kept failing.  It took several months, with long discussions and multi-page documents from me to NI Support, but kept failing.

At one point, Marina (the Support Specialist with whom I'd been working) suggested I install 2018, then 2017, then 2016.  "Ha!", I thought, and tried again, oldest-to-newest, again failing.  So I uninstalled everything (again), and did what she suggested -- 2018, 2017, 2016.  And it worked!!!

I'm now using 2019 and 2021, as they are the (last?) versions that have a myRIO Software Toolkit (and even that can be a problem!).  LabVIEW installation remains a Mysterious Black Box with ever-changing traps.

Bob Schor