Can't find Microsoft templates for Measurement Studio

[Penny]

Hi there,

I just installed NI-VISA 4.3, NI Measurement Studio 8.1, and

MS Visual Studio 2005.  My hope was to write a little piece of

code to talk to my scope via GPIB.  However, when I go to

start a new project in C#, I do not see the "NI-VISA Windows

Application" and "NI-VISA Class Library" among the available

project templates.  According to my instructions for beginners,

I am going to need them.

Would someone happen to know which directory these

templates might have landed in during the installation of

Measurement Studio?  If I could just find them I could probably

move them into a more useful location.

Thanks!

Penny

[JettR]

Hello Penny,

What order did you install your software in?  You might need to "install" VISA again to install the support for Visual Studio.  The rule of thumb is drivers are always the last piece of software you should install.  Hopefully after you install VISA again, you will see the templates.

[DieselPower]

I just installed the latest version and it moved my examples from the typical location of C:\Program Files\National Instruments\MeasurementStudioVS2005\DotNET\Examples
to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\National Instruments\MStudioVS2005\DotNET\Examples

Try searching your PC for folders named NI-DAQ.  That may help you find them.

[Penny]

Hi Jett and Michael,

Thanks for those replies.  I went and uninstalled everything but LabView 8.5 .

Then, I installed the NI Device Driver CD, followed by NI Measurement Studio,

then MS Visual Studio 2005, and then NI VISA 4.3 .  Still no luck finding the

NI-VISA templates for a new .NET project.  I think they are supposed to be

available, based on page 1-2 of the instructions at

http://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/351524a.pdf .

Next, I ran a search for the templates on the entire computer.  I assumed

that they would be called *NI*VISA*.cs*, or *VISA*.cs*, or *NI*.cs*, based

on the syntax for other non-NI templates.  The searches came up empty.

I did find one file called ConfigureDAQmxAcquisitionForm.cs under Examples

somewhere (searched on *DAQ*.cs*), but I don't think it's going to help.  Maybe

the templates are called something else?  Or maybe I just don't have them?

Thanks,

Penny

[DieselPower]

The usual sequence is to install Measurement Studio first, then the drivers.

I recommend going this route.

[Penny]

Hi Michael,

Hmm.  It just seems a little weird to have to uninstall/reinstall all of those generic drivers
before installing Measurement Studio.  I would think that people might have other
applications, distinct from Measurement Studio, that depend on those other drivers.  Also,
I would think that VISA 4.3 would overwrite/reinstall the VISA drivers that are needed
for the Microsoft/NI-VISA applications after Measurement Studio is installed.

Thanks,
Penny

[DieselPower]

I think it is weird that the uninstaller uninstalls my program when I uninstall all of the drivers, but I don't work at NI.  😉

[drohacek]

Penny -

You don't have to uninstall the drivers before installing Measurement Studio. You just have to re-run the driver installers after installing Measurement Studio. The installers will not re-install everything, they will only add the parts that require MStudio.

This is necessary because the driver installers (NI-VISA and NI-DAQmx) include parts that are usable only when Measurement Studio is installed (for example, the parts that make the Instrument I/O Assistant or DAQ Assistant work inside of Measurement Studio).

We want to install these parts only if MStudio is on the system because 1) we don't want to take up more space than necessary on systems that don't have MStudio; and 2) these driver parts would have to define the MStudio directory, which an MStudio users could not then change while installing MStudio Core support without first uninstalling the driver.

We need to include these parts in the driver installer (and not in the MStudio Core installer) because they frequently need to be updated to reflect changes or new features in the drivers.

You also stated, "VISA 4.3 would overwrite/reinstall the VISA drivers that are needed for the Microsoft/NI-VISA applications after Measurement Studio is installed". I'm not sure what you meant by this. Updating to a newer version of NI-VISA will update all of the parts, including the parts that support MStudio, as necessary.

Please let us know if this does not address your concern or if this architecture doesn't work, as I've described, for your scenario.

David Rohacek
National Instruments

[Penny]

Hi David,

Thanks for the reply.  I went ahead and re-installed the NI Device Driver CD,

and then re-installed NI VISA 4.3 .  Still no VS templates.  So I searched the

whole computer again for files with syntax *visa*.cs*, thinking that the VISA

templates might be in some other directory.  The only file that came up was

"C:\Program Files\National Instruments\MAX\Assistants\IIOA\IIOAssistantVisa.cs" .

Could there be some other way to get those templates?  Maybe I was

supposed to download them from someplace else?

Thanks,

Penny

[drohacek]

Penny -

I was mistaken about which part installs the VISA templates. The templates are installed by the Instrument I/O Assistant (IIOA) rather than by VISA. The templates provide the entry point for integrating the IIOA into Visual Studio. The IIOA is the high-level tool that helps you use the VISA API.

When you ran the NI Device Drivers installer, did you enable the Instrument Control>>NI Instrument I/O Assistant feature (see attached image)?

If not, could you try re-running the installer to add this support and see if the templates are installed? They should install to this location: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\Measurement Studio. Do you have this directory? If so, what files are in it?

David Rohacek
National Instruments