What version of LabVIEW should I use to make a new instrument driver?

[MattBradley]

Hey all,

This is more of an opinion question.  And we all know that opinions are like .... never mind.

Soon, I'm going to be developing a new LabVIEW instrument driver.  It's an RF instrument with a USB interface.  The question is -- what versions of LabVIEW should we support?  If it was up to me, I'd just use 8.6 (because that's what I have on my PC).  But...from a customer point of view...that doesn't make sense.  So, how far back should we go?  8.2.1?  8?  7 (shudder)?

Obviously, no wrong answer.  Unless you say LabVIEW 4 or something like that.

Thanks a lot.

[AdnanZ]

Well, NI supports only three major versions from the most recent release. So, it's 8.6.1, 8.5.1 and 8.2.1. So, you could go according to that. But, I have a interacted with quite a few clients who still use 7.1 and previous versions. So, I guess from a consultant point of view, I would support (and program) whatever versions my clients use as long as the device I want to use is supported in that version.

[MattBradley]

Thanks for the reply -- to clarify a bit, my client is the one who made the device -- it's new and hasn't been released yet.  So the question is ... what do think their customers will want?

[RavensFan]

I would agree with LV 7.1.  You still see quite a few people on the forums using that version.  I rarely see 7 or earlier.  And those people are usually just asking to have VI's upgraded or downgraded.

I would go with whatever version started using NI-VISA.  I know 7.1 had it.  I'm not sure which was the first version using VISA.  If a version requires using those old serial compatibility VI's, just avoid it and tell those people to upgrade to a newer version of LV.  If you really must supply an ancient version such as LV7 or 6, then worry about modifying the 7.1 version you are making now back to the older version.  But chances are you won't need to.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Well, I first used NI-VISA with version 4 I believe.

While there might be a lot of version 7.1 users out there, the downside is that if you create a project style driver and imho you should, you would then have to maintain a separate llb type driver. You have to decide is that worth the hassle. Personally, I would probably go with just releasing a 8.0 driver like all of the new drivers that NI is creating.