RTwatchdog & Watchdog Menu Missing After Installing LabVIEW 8.6 and NI-DAQ 8.7.2

[Ron_@_Fluor-Bettis]

Well, I thought it might involve a fix like this; however, I don't know if I now have an 8.5 version of RTwatchdog.llb or an 8.6 version.  Was RTwatchdog updated between the 8.6 and 8.5 releases?  The date on my RTwatchdog.llb file is 3/3/2008, so I'm thinking it's the 8.5 version.  So if I create a palette that's linked to the RTwatchdog.llb that I have, will the features work correctly in 8.6?  At the PXI controller end, I'm probably OK because the latest update of NI-DAQ did not update the version of NI-Watchdog (it stayed at 2.2.0), but I'm not 100% sure about the host end.

By the way, I did go ahead and create a service request on this: SR#7212307.

[Ron_@_Fluor-Bettis]

I was able to repair the RT Watchdog menu using the steps in the knowledgebase article.  I have not tested it by actually using the VIs from the palette yet though.  I was able to reload and run my existing application though - which does run, but I have not fully tested it yet.  I'm still not sure though if I have an 8.5 version of RTwatchdog.llb or an 8.6 version (maybe there weren't any changes in it from 8.5 to 8.6; I don't know).

[Ron_@_Fluor-Bettis]

I did discover that NI-Watchdog is not part of LabVIEW Professional, the Real-Time module, or NI-DAQ - which is why I didn't get the update from installing these three separate downloads.  It's a part of the overall superset of NI Device Drivers which is included in the DVD distribution.  The five separate CD-sized downloads that comprise the NI Device Drivers package are available at ni.com.  That may be the disconnect.

The latest version of NI-Watchdog is 3.0; we have been using version 2.2.  I don't see any standalone download for NI-Watchdog 3.0 on ni.com; you have to use the NI Device Drivers distribution to get it.

That said, you would think that running the MSI in the NI-Watchdog_Host and NI-Watchdog_RT product folders in the LabVIEW suite DVD distribution (which contain version 3.0) would fix/patch-over the problem, but it doesn't.  I believe that running the NI-Watchdog_Host MSI does fix the RT Watchdog palette, but neither unpack the updated RTwatchdog.llb file.

The NI Device Drivers distribution does have the older NI-Watchdog 2.2 version; and if you run the MSIs for the older version, I noticed that it does unpack the RTwatchdog.llb into the 8.5 target vi.lib folder.  The 3.0 MSIs do not.

I verified that you can just replace the RTwatchdog.llb file with the updated version manually if you have a copy and declare victory.  Otherwise, it seems like the only way to get RT-Watchdog updated is to reinstall LabVIEW RT 8.6 from the Development Suite DVDs.  I have replaced my RTwatchdog.llb file on my machines in the 8.5 and 8.6 folders.  The local path for 8.6 is C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.6\Targets\NI\RT\vi.lib.