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Why Do My VISA TCP/IP Resources Not Show Up in MAX after a Reboot?

Primary Software: Driver Software>>NI-VISA
Primary Software Version: N/A
Primary Software Fixed Version: N/A
Secondary Software: N/A

Problem:
I have a version of VISA prior to 4.4.1 installed and have set up several VISA TCP/IP Resources in Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX) . I recently upgraded to VISA 4.4.1 and copied over my visaconf.ini file to restore my VISA settings. When I reboot my machine, why does my VISA TCP/IP Resources no longer show up in MAX?

Solution:
Starting from VISA 4.4.1,  the visaconf.ini now has a new Static flag for every VISA resources to differentiate between dynamic and static resources. There are two ways of solving this problem:
  1. Manually add the VISA resources in MAX. By doing this, MAX will add the new resourfces with the new Static flag.
  2. Edit visaconf.ini and add Static# = 1 under each VISA resource where # represents the resource number.
An example of a VISA TCP/IP Resource list in visaconf.ini created prior to VISA 4.4.1 would look like the following.

Prior to VISA 4.4.1

[[TCPIP-RSRCS]
SynchronizeAllSocket = 0
SynchronizeAllVxi11 = 1
Name0 = "TCPIP0::132.168.1.2::INSTR"
Enabled0 = 1
Name1 = "TCPIP0::132.168.1.3::INSTR"
Enabled1 = 1
NumOfResources = 2;
Starting from VISA 4.4.1

[[TCPIP-RSRCS]
SynchronizeAllSocket = 0
SynchronizeAllVxi11 = 1
Name0 = "TCPIP0::132.168.1.2::INSTR"
Enabled0 = 1
Static0 = 1
Name1 = "TCPIP0::132.168.1.3::INSTR"
Enabled1 = 1
Static1 = 1
NumOfResources = 2;
Note: With MAX version 4.2 and newer, visaconf.ini is located in the Windows directory Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\National Instruments\NIvisa.

The visaconf.ini stores various VISA configurations, resource information and aliases. Starting from VISA 4.4.1, we introduced a new feature which allows the drivers to automatically check for LXI Class C (LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation) devices connected to your computer and dynamically add them to the VISA Resource list in visaconf.ini. Since this check is done every time you boot up your machine, any resources that are no longer detected are removed from the VISA config file. To differentiate between dynamic and static resources, a Static flag was added. If Static is set to 0 (dynamic), this specifies that the specific VISA resource was automatically added, whereas a value of 1 (static) would signify that it was manually added by a user. Since any older visaconf.ini file created prior to VISA 4.4.1 will not have this flag, it will automatically delete these resources, thus preventing them to show in MAX.

Related Links:
Developer Zone Tutorial: What Is LXI?
KnowledgeBase 4FDEG8C5: Where is the visaconf.ini File Located?

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Report Date: 10/22/2008
Last Updated: 10/27/2008
Document ID: 4QLLA7JQ

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