Question about mixing LabWindows CVI runtime versions...

[ChristopherPovey]

I have LabWindows CVI 8.0.0 (273) installed on my PC.  Today I installed TestStand 4.1 and LabView 8.6 for some future work.  In the course of the installation the CVI runtime was upgraded to version 8.5.1.356.  I cannot upgrade LabWindows CVI my current projects use it. The question is will there be any adverse affects from have LabWindows CVI 8.0.0 projects built with and distributed with CVI Runtime 8.5.1.356?

[RobertoBozzolo]

The run-time engines are backward compatible so you should have no problems using the newer one with executable created with older CVI versions. (better: sometimes using a more recent RTE corrects problems that you may find and have been solved in the engine itself).

[Hillman]

Hi,

Thanks Roberto for answering this thread.

I just wanted to double check from NI point of view - and this is definitely the case. 

The LabWindows/CVI Run-Time Engine is backwards compatible and may be used with applications that were created with previous versions of LabWindows/CVI.

When you build an application using a specific version of the LabWindows/CVI environment, that application does not require a specific version of the LabWindows/CVI Run-Time Engine. The only requirement is that when it runs, that it can find a version of the LabWindows/CVI Run-Time Engine whose version is equal or higher than the version of LabWindows/CVI which built the application. Therefore, it is possible to build an application with LabWindows/CVI 7.1, for example, and then run that application using the LabWindows/CVI 8.0 Run-Time Engine.

Note The LabWindows/CVI Run-Time Engine must be installed on any Windows system where you plan to run executables or DLLs built using LabWindows/CVI.

Note You do not need to un-install the previous version of the Run-Time Engine before installing this version.

I also did some research into potential issues you may have - but it seems there haven't been any (well) documented situations when this compatible didn't work. There have been more known issues regarding backwards compatibility with the DAQmx driver. 

Kind Regards, 

[jr_2005]

Well, there's this post, and this one, and this one, and this one,... Maybe you should spend more than 5 minutes "researching into potential issues" before coming up with such incorrect blanket assertions.

JR

[ChristopherPovey]

Thanks for the responses... 

The LabWindows CVI is version 8.0 and the run-time is 8.5.1.  Are there any new or changed controls in LabWindows CVI 8.5 from LabWindows CVI 8.0?

I know we had issues before when loading CVI 6.x projects into CVI 8.0 and then adding specific CVI 8.0 controls.  These project then fail to load in CVI 6.x!

[Hillman]

Hi,

Im sorry you feel my comments were 'incorrect'. I spent 30minutes research the CAR (corrective action requests) and the AE world wide databases (USA) for known issues regarding compatibility. Hence my wording 'well documented' issues.

It seems known of the Application Engineers who answered these posts made any official outcomes off the posts. 

I would also suggest maybe replying to questions with a more helpful tone - providing the original poster with potential details of forum links you provide, rather than just posting links - after all, once you've read the link you should be able to summaries the key issues in these.

My attempt:

Link 1: "Between LabWindows/CVI 7.1 and 8.0 we changed the way that we drew rotated text.  Some time later we discovered that certain fonts don't support rotated text. Of course if we had known about this limitation before hand then we may have considered a different route.  Actually you are the first customer to actually discover this problem. " This link certainly seems related to the question of backwards compatibility, but I was unable to find a CAR number. 

Link 2: bug was 'not very consistently reproducible'and was again fixed in later versions of the run time. 

Link 3:  CVI run-time engine is version 7.0.0.393, or 7.0.0.395 - known bus issue fixed in later versions of the run time engine. Again, a bug with axis control - I was looking in backward compatibility in my defense.

Link 4: Luis has posted a patch for the overlapped control bug here for CVI8.5 . However Im not sure how this relates to issues regarding backward compatibility. http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=180&thread.id=3415

So the conclusion for the first reply, that known issues could be resolved by running the exe on a new version of the run time seems very consistent with these links.

At the end of the day I was just trying to help.

Kind Regards,  

[RobertoBozzolo]

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ChristopherPovey wrote:

I know we had issues before when loading CVI 6.x projects into CVI 8.0 and then adding specific CVI 8.0 controls.  These project then fail to load in CVI 6.x!

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This is the expected behaviour, I think: backward compatibility means that a newer RTE can run an old executable. Trying to load a project into an older IDE will almost always fail, especially (but not only!) if in the project you have used controls introduced in a more recent version of CVI... The same is true with executables: a CVI 8 executable will not run on a RTE 6.x!