.dll file only included if referenced not all the time

[rolfk]

It’s impossible that Windows doesn’t come with these DLLs. If you can’t find them it is because they are hidden and/or your user account doesn’t have rights to browse these directories. 

For the NI DLLs you need to build an installer for your application and add the according NI installers to it.

[CatDoe]

I have tried that, but ran into an unusual situation. I can see my .dll files in the file view of the project itself. I have moved them to be included within the project, rather than the dependencies following this tutorial: Add a DLL to the Windows System Folder with a LabVIEW Installer - NI. 

However, I cannot see the .dll files in the installer source file window to add them to the installer. The path in the project view says they are just in the C: drive.

Any ideas?

[rolfk]

The Windows DLLs MUST not be included in your build under any circumstances!

The NI dlls are only the LabVIEW side wrappers, but that is not enough. They depend on other DLLs that need to be properly installed on the system and can’t just be copied onto another system. 

Once you created the executable with an Executable Build Specification, you need to create an Installer Build Specification. Here you can under Additional Installers select more installers than the LabVIEW runtime installer only.

[CatDoe]

I passed the windows .dll file issue to IT to deal with. 

I still couldn't see the NI .dll files or the one from a third party in the installer source file view. Is that because they were not included with the build? They show up in the project itself.

[zou]

There are 2 vision toolkit: VAS and VDM

VAS is for image acquisition, VDM is for image analyze.

If you used image analyze functions in the Vision Assistant, then you need to buy and install a VDM runtime.

If you have not install vision toolkit(s) on the Windows 11, you should do so.

After you installed and activated vision toolkit(s), your exe should be able find them automatically.

[JimB.]

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@CatDoe wrote:

It did not come with the brand new Windows 11 system we have. Nor did it come through a patch or update since.

It is also a common problem based on my google searches. I need my program to install the .dll files if they are not installed regardless due to the final purpose of this program.

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Those files are absolutely essential to the function of any Windows application. Whether or not they are hidden or you don't have permission to view them, if the computer is functioning at all then they are definitely there. Copying some other version in from another computer is likely to be disastrous.

(It's probably not a great idea to manually copy the NI ones either. They probably aren't the only files installed by the drivers and toolkits they come with, and you may end up with a different set of problems and other missing dependencies.)

The two screenshots you show are for the Application (EXE) build spec. Have you built an installer as well?

If so, what do you have selected in the Additional Installers section? You may need to select additional runtimes, toolkits, or drivers that weren't automatically selected.

If not, how are you moving it to each computer it is deployed on? NIPKG?

Note that some toolkits may also require a separate deployment license on each machine, which (I think) may cause DLL errors to display if not properly authorized as well.