LabWindows/CVI for Windows Vista/XP/2000, Version 8.5.1

Readme File

This file contains installation information, programming considerations, and changes that are too recent to be included in the LabWindows/CVI Help. Refer to the LabWindows/CVI Release Notes for more information about new features.

Contents

Minimum System Requirements
Installing LabWindows/CVI
Activating LabWindows/CVI
After Installation
Known Issues
Bug Fixes

Minimum System Requirements

To run LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1, you must have the following items:

• Personal computer using a Pentium 1GHz or higher microprocessor
• Windows Vista/XP/2000 Service Pack 3 or later
• 1024 × 768 resolution (or higher) video adapter
• Minimum of 128 MB of RAM, 512 MB recommended
• 200 MB free hard disk space
• Microsoft-compatible mouse

Installing LabWindows/CVI

National Instruments recommends that you install the complete LabWindows/CVI program to take full advantage of all LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1 functionality. If you choose to install with options, select the options you want and follow the on-screen directions. If necessary, you can run the setup program again to install or remove additional files.

Before Installation

• If you install the LabWindows/CVI Real-Time Module and device drivers with LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1, you must install these products in the following order:
  1. LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1
  2. LabWindows/CVI Real-Time Module
  3. Device driver software from the NI Device Drivers CD set
  If you are installing the LabWindows/CVI Real-Time Module, do not install the device driver software when you are prompted to do so during the LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1 installation. Instead, install the device driver software when you are prompted during the LabWindows/CVI Real-Time Module installation.
• When you install LabWindows/CVI, your user account must have administrator privileges.
• You must explicitly select the Win32 SDK feature of the LabWindows/CVI installer to install the complete Windows SDK from the LabWindows/CVI Full Development System (FDS). Some Windows SDK header and import library files are included when you install the LabWindows/CVI Base Package. The Windows SDK help file is available only with the LabWindows/CVI FDS.
• The LabWindows/CVI installation includes the LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1 Run-Time Engine. This version overwrites previous versions of the run-time engine. After you install LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1, executables and DLLs created with previous versions of LabWindows/CVI automatically use the new LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1 Run-Time Engine.
• If you install LabWindows/CVI onto a network drive, you might encounter an error during installation that prevents files that the IVI Instrument Driver Wizard requires from being installed. This issue does not affect other functionality in LabWindows/CVI.
• If you have installed Microsoft Security Update 896358, you might not be able to view topics within the LabWindows/CVI Help if the file is on a network drive. To solve this issue, copy the .chm files that LabWindows/CVI installs to your local hard drive and launch them as normal.
• The IVI Installer Creator and IVI Specific Driver Test Suite items are selected by default in the installer feature tree only if the IVI Compliance Package is installed. You can select these items if the IVI Compliance Package is not installed, but you must then install the IVI Compliance Package, which you can download from ni.com.

Running the Installation

Complete the following steps to install LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1:

Note  If you already have a different version of LabWindows/CVI installed on your computer, be sure to install version 8.5.1 in a different directory or uninstall the other version before installing LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1.

1. Insert the LabWindows/CVI CD into the CD drive. If the CD does not run automatically, open Windows Explorer, right-click the CD drive icon, and select AutoPlay.
2. On installation startup, the National Instruments LabWindows/CVI screen appears. Click Install LabWindows/CVI.
3. In the User Information panel, enter your name and organization. Select one of the following options:
   
   • Install this product using the following serial number
   • Install this product for evaluation
   If you choose to enter a serial number, enter the serial number found on your Certificate of Ownership card. LabWindows/CVI uses this serial number when you run the NI Activation Wizard.
4. Continue to follow the instructions on the screen.

Activating LabWindows/CVI

Complete the following steps to activate LabWindows/CVI.

1. Select the Automatically activate through a secure Internet connection option and click Next. Your computer must be connected to the Internet for this option to work. If you do not have Internet access on your computer, refer to the LabWindows/CVI Release Notes.
2. The Serial Number option is populated with the number you entered during installation. Click Next.
3. Fill in the necessary information and click Next.
4. Check the option if you would like to receive a confirmation email of your activation and click Next.
5. After a brief moment, you should receive a message indicating whether LabWindows/CVI has been activated or not. Enter or verify your serial number. Click Next.
6. Continue to follow the instructions on the screen.
7. When you successfully activate LabWindows/CVI, click Finish. LabWindows/CVI will then display a window indicating when this license will expire.

For more information about activation, refer to the LabWindows/CVI Release Notes.

After Installation

• Installing LabWindows/CVI in a New Directory—If you installed driver or toolkit software for a previous version of LabWindows/CVI and you install LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1 in a new directory, you must uninstall and reinstall the LabWindows/CVI portion of the driver or toolkit software.
• New Location for Example Programs—You can find example programs in the following location on Windows Vista: \Users\Public\Documents\National Instruments\CVI85\samples. On Windows 2000/XP, example programs are located in the following location: \Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\National Instruments\CVI85\samples. You can find a link to these locations from the previously used location (\Program Files\National Instruments\CVI85\samples).
• New Location for Project and File Templates—Save user-defined project and file templates in the LabWindows/CVI public documents directory (\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\National Instruments\CVI on Windows XP/2000 and \Users\Public\Documents\National Instruments\CVI on Windows Vista). LabWindows/CVI no longer searches the previous locations, \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\CVI and \Documents and Settings\<User ID>\Application Data\CVI, for project and file templates.

Known Issues

• Flushing Internal Buffers in a Network Variable Write Operation—This version of LabWindows/CVI introduces a new attribute, CNVFlushOnWriteAttribute, which specifies whether to flush all internal buffers in a network variable write operation. Flushing internal buffers improves network variable performance. This attribute is TRUE by default. Existing programs that you open with LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1 take advantage of the improved performance by flushing internal buffers.
  
  Flushing on write may cause lower throughput in some high bandwidth conditions, in which case you can set CNVFlushOnWriteAttribute to 0 (FALSE). In high bandwidth conditions, National Instruments recommends using the CNVBufferedWriter connection.
• Flushing Internal Buffers in a Network Variable Read Operation—During a read operation, the Network Variable Library flushes all network variable connections in your program, including data in writer connections, for better performance.
• Debugging Executables on Windows Vista—On Windows Vista, executables that contain setup, install, or update as part of their name automatically require administrator privileges. If you run these executables as stand-alone from a user-level account, Windows will prompt you for an administrator password. However, LabWindows/CVI cannot debug these applications from a user-level account. When you try to run them, LabWindows/CVI displays a Could not run executable notification. NI recommends that you rename your executable so that it does not contain those words in its name.
• Performing DAQmx USB Buffered Operations on Windows Vista—On Windows Vista x64 Edition, running a program that uses NI-DAQmx 8.5 and terminating the program while it is performing DAQmx USB buffered operations can cause the machine to reboot or to display a Windows kernel bugcheck.
  
  The following may cause a process to terminate unexpectedly:
  
  
  • Selecting the End Process option in the Task Manager to kill the process.
  • Using a utility such as pskill to request process termination.
  • Shutting down the computer from the command line using shutdown -r -t 0 while the task is still running.
  • The process encountering an access violation, breakpoint, or other unhandled exception.
  • Attempting to log off, restart, or shutdown and clicking Cancel when the process prompts you to quit or cancel.
  • Choosing to stop the process from the LabWindows/CVI debugger while it is running or suspended.
• Using Functions Requiring the Low-Level Driver—The LabWindows/CVI low-level driver is not supported on Windows Vista x64 Edition. The following functions are affected: inp, inpd, inpw, MapPhysicalMemory, outp, outpd, outpw, ReadFromPhysicalMemory, ReadFromPhysicalMemoryEx, StartPCSound, StopPCSound, UnMapPhysicalMemory, WriteToPhysicalMemory, WriteToPhysicalMemoryEx.
• Using Compressed Icons—To use a Windows Vista compliant icon (featuring very large icons or PNG compression), you must replace the resource compiler shipped with LabWindows/CVI with the one included in the Windows SDK released with Windows Vista. Install the SDK and copy the rc.exe and rcdll.dll files from C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0\Bin to CVI85\sdk\bin.
• Registering ActiveX Servers—When you build ActiveX servers in LabWindows/CVI 8.1.1 and later on Windows Vista and XP, the ActiveX servers are registered in your user profile. This registration is not visible to other users on your system. On previous versions of Windows, ActiveX servers are registered for all users. When you register these servers outside the LabWindows/CVI environment, they are always registered for all users; this option requires administrator privileges on Vista.
• Registering LabWindows/CVI as an ActiveX Server—Installing LabWindows/CVI registers it for all users. Launching LabWindows/CVI registers LabWindows/CVI as an ActiveX server. LabWindows/CVI is registered in your user profile on all versions of Windows.
• Viewing Help—If you open the LabWindows/CVI Help outside of LabWindows/CVI, such as launching it through the Start menu, you might not see all driver or toolkit content. Select Help»Contents to open the LabWindows/CVI Help from within LabWindows/CVI to ensure that all driver and toolkit content is available.
• Creating and Deleting Network Variables and Processes—You may notice that about 50 bytes of memory are lost when you create and delete a network variable or process.
• Setting the Compatibility Mode for Real-Time DLLs—When you create a DLL to run on a real-time target, you must use the Visual C/C++ compatibility mode. The Borland C/C++ compatibility mode is not supported for real-time DLLs.
• Using the LabWindows/CVI Conversion Wizard in Visual Studio .NET 2005—Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 removed support for the single-threaded version of its C library. Therefore, you must configure your project's linker settings to ignore directives to use the single-threaded C library. In Visual Studio, select Project»Properties and expand the properties tree to the Configuration Properties»Linker»Input item. Add libc to the Ignore Specific Library option. Refer to the I Receive Linker Errors When Using LabWindows/CVI-Generated Static Libraries and Object Files in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 KnowlegeBase article for more information.
• Running the LabWindows/CVI Project and Conversion Wizards in Visual Studio .NET 2003—If you use the LabWindows/CVI Project and Conversion Wizards in Visual Studio .NET 2003 and try to build a project that was created by one of these wizards, you will receive linker errors. With LabWindows/CVI 8.5 and later, the LabWindows/CVI libraries can be installed to various locations. The LabWindows/CVI wizards are not aware of these changes and therefore cannot find the needed libraries. These linker errors will only occur if you are using the LabWindows/CVI wizards in Visual Studio .NET 2003. Refer to National Instruments KnowledgeBase Article 4BIHC800 for steps to work around this issue.
• Updating an Existing Distribution—The LabWindows/CVI distribution creation feature does not provide the option to include .obj files for both compatible compilers. If you convert an existing distribution that has this option enabled, LabWindows/CVI includes the .obj files only for the current compatible compiler in the updated distribution.
• Using the NI Instrument I/O Assistant—The Instrument I/O Assistant 2.0 generates LabWindows/CVI code that is not backward compatible with code that previous versions of the Instrument I/O Assistant generated. If you run code generated with the Instrument I/O Assistant 2.0 with an existing application, the code in that application might not compile.
• Uninstalling LabWindows/CVI—If you have multiple versions of LabWindows/CVI installed and you uninstall one of the versions, the remaining installation will be missing its file associations, and its automation capabilities will not function properly. To fix this problem, perform a repair installation of the remaining LabWindows/CVI version.
• Making Backup .uir Files—If you have been using LabWindows/CVI 8.1.1 or earlier, make backup copies of your .uir files. Once you save .uir files in LabWindows/CVI 8.5, the .uir files are no longer compatible with versions 8.1.1 or earlier. You cannot load .uir files that you have saved in LabWindows/CVI 8.5 in LabWindows/CVI 8.1.1 or earlier.
  
  You can save .uir files you create or load in LabWindows/CVI 8.5 in LabWindows/CVI 7.1 or LabWindows/CVI 8.0/8.1 format. Select File»Save .uir As and specify the version in the Save as type option. If you save a user interface with features that were added in later versions of LabWindows/CVI, those features are removed when you save the file in 7.1 or 8.0/8.1 format.
• Using Microsoft Excel as an ActiveX Control—If you develop an application that uses Excel as an ActiveX control on a LabWindows/CVI user interface panel, make sure that a separate instance of Excel is not running simultaneously. Otherwise, programmatic calls to the Excel control might not work as expected after the separate Excel application terminates.
• Navigating the Tools Library and Toolkit Topics in the LabWindows/CVI Help—If you click a link from a topic in the Tools Library or a toolkit section of the LabWindows/CVI Help or from the toolslib function panel help, you cannot use the Back button in the help viewer toolbar to return to the original topic.
• Using the Advanced Analysis Library—Upgrading to LabWindows/CVI 8.5 and later may cause the Advanced Analysis or Analysis Library to produce numerical differences in floating point results and different results for exceptional inputs, such as positive or negative infinity and NaN. These differences may occur because the underlying C Analysis library has been recompiled in LabWindows/CVI 8.5 to take advantage of new processors and operating systems.
• Analysis Function Behavior Changes—The following function behavior has changed from LabWindows/CVI 7.1 to LabWindows/CVI 8.x:
  • SVD and CxSVD—The following formula defines the SVD factorization of an n-by-m matrix A: A = USV^T.
    
    In LabWindows/CVI 7.1 and earlier, U is an orthogonal matrix of dimensions n-by-m. In LabWindows/CVI 8.x and later, U is an orthogonal matrix of dimensions n-by-min(n, m).
    
    In LabWindows/CVI 7.1 and earlier, V is an orthogonal matrix of dimensions m-by-m. In LabWindows/CVI 8.x and later, V is an orthogonal matrix of dimensions m-by-min(n, m).
    
    In LabWindows/CVI 7.1 and earlier, S is a diagonal matrix of dimensions m-by-m. In LabWindows/CVI 8.x and later, S is a diagonal matrix of dimensions min(n, m)-by-min(n, m).
    
    In LabWindows/CVI 7.1 and earlier, CxSVD has the following requirement: If numberOfRows (n) < numberOfColumns (m), you must allocate m*m*sizeof(ComplexNum) bytes of memory to the input matrix and the U orthogonal matrix. LabWindows/CVI 8.x no longer has this requirement.
  • Lu and CxLU—In LabWindows/CVI 7.1 and earlier, if the input matrix is singular, the functions stop the decomposition and return SingularMatrixErr. In LabWindows/CVI 8.x and later, if the input matrix is singular, the functions complete the decomposition and return SingularMatrixWarn. In this case, there are one or more zero elements along the diagonal of U.
  • CxTrace—CxTrace accepts only a square matrix. In LabWindows/CVI 7.1 and earlier, the function requires both the number of rows and the number of columns as input parameters. In LabWindows/CVI 8.x and later, matrixSize specifies both the number of rows and the number of columns. The numberOfColumns parameter in LabWindows/CVI 7.1 and earlier is a reserved parameter in LabWindows/CVI 8.x. This parameter is not referenced in the function.
  • ConditionNumber and CxConditionNumber—In LabWindows/CVI 7.1 and earlier, these functions return NaN for singular input matrices. In LabWindows/CVI 8.x and later, these functions return Inf for singular input matrices.
  • GenLSFit—In LabWindows/CVI 8.x and later, GenLSFit calculates the mean squared error as the weighted mean square error, which differs from the prior implementation of the function.

Bug Fixes

The following items are the IDs and titles of the bugs fixed between LabWindows/CVI 8.1.1 and LabWindows/CVI 8.5. For a list of bug fixes in previous releases, refer to ni.com.

User Interface

Development Environment

Compiler

Debugging

Performance

Stand-Alone Applications and Distributions

Help

Miscellaneous

Copyright

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Patents

For patents covering the National Instruments products, refer to the appropriate location: Help»Patents in your software, the patents.txt file on your CD, or ni.com/patents.