what is "LabVIEW Run Time Engine"?

[Elsa Fung]

I'm trying to find the differences between two computers that I'm troubleshooting.  One of them is my development system which has the whole Development Suite installed, and the other is a test station which has LabVIEW 8.0 Evaluation Version installed.  When I was looking through the list of programs in my development system (in Add/Remove Programs), I found a program named "LabVIEW Run Time Engine" and the size is 0.11 MB that is not in my test station.  I thought all the NI components are installed under "National Instruments Software" including the Run Time Engine...

Does anyone knows what this is?

See-Ming

[tbob]

The Run Time Engine is a library of routines that a compiled Labview program needs to run on a system that doesn't have the development environment.  It is similar to Visual Basic's vbrun.dll, which compiled VB programs need to run.

As far as I know, the run time engine gets installed whenever you install any Labview development environment.  This engine is usually only necessary when running a Labview program compiled to an exe format.  Both the exe and the run time engine can be installed on another computer so that the program can run without having to buy another development package for that computer.

The runtime engine is called LVRT.DLL.  Search for it.  For version 7.1, the run time engine is in C:\Program Files\National Instruments\shared\LabVIEW Run-Time\7.1\lvrt.dll

[Elsa Fung]

It's in the same place for LabVIEW 8.0 (except it's under the 8.0 folder)

but my question is why is it listed separately from all the other NI components?  Also, the Run Time Engines are also listed under National Instructments Software (when I click on Change, a list of all the NI software comes up, and the Run Time Engines are listed).

[tbob]

Don't know why it is listed separately.  Maybe NI can answer that one.  Does it really matter?

[kehander]

The idea is that the LabVIEW Run Time Engine can be downloaded and installed on a computer that has otherwise never had anything to do with LabVIEW. My guess is, as it would have to be listed separately on such computers, it is listed separately on all computers to be consistent.

An aside: I've noticed that the LabVIEW Run Time Engine for LabVIEW 7.1 and LabVIEW 7.1.1 are actually installed in the same place. If you have a program compiled in LabVIEW 7.1 and try to run it on a computer with the Run Time Engine 7.1.1 installed, you actually won't get anywhere unless you can get the lvrt.dll from 7.l!

[Elsa Fung]

it doesn't really matter, except I'm trying to setup the two computers with the same LabVIEW setting for troubleshooting

[Enrique]

Just to add to tbob: You also need the engine to run LabVIEW DLLs.