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Clicking the "Communicate with Instrument" Button in MAX Launches Microsoft Communicator

Primary Software: Driver Software>>NI-488.2
Primary Software Version: 2.5
Primary Software Fixed Version: 2.6
Secondary Software: Utility Software>>Measurement & Automation Explorer

Problem:
When I click on the "Communicate with Instrument" button in Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX), the Microsoft Communicator program launches instead of the GPIB communicator.  Why is this happening?

Solution:
Microsoft recently released an updated version of their Instant Messenger client "Microsoft Communicator". This client was originally released in 2005 but was upgraded in Quarter 2 of 2007 (for Office 2007). Clicking the "Communicate with Instrument" button when attempting to do GPIB communication in MAX in this case launches the Microsoft Communicator program. This is because both Microsoft Communicator and 488.2 include a "Communicator.exe".

Future releases of NI-488.2 will address this issue

In the meantime there are two workarounds:

• Call the NI-488.2 Communicator directly from the Microsoft Command Prompt. 
  
  
  1. Go to Start » Run, enter cmd and click ok. 
     
  2. In the command prompt, change the directory to Program Files\National Instruments\NI-488.2\Bin. 
     
  3. Once in this directory, type Communicator.exe GPIBID 0 PA 0 where GPIBID is the GPIB Interface ID and PA is the primary address. Then press Enter. 
     
  
  This will load the NI-488.2 Communicator and is demonstrated in Figure 1. The GPIB interface ID and Primary address are system specific and can be found in MAX under Devices and Interfaces » GPIB Instrument, as shown in Figure 2.
  
  
  Figure 1.  Command prompt windows for calling GPIB Communicator
  
  
  Figure 2.  MAX window to find Primary Address and GPIB Interface ID
  
  
• Alternatively, you can access the functionality of the NI-488.2 communicator with VISA Interactive Control. 
  
  
  1. From MAX, go to Tools » VISA » VISA Interactive Control. 
     
  2. In the VISA Interactive Control, select the VISA I/O tab and expand the GPIB tree. Then double-click on your device. 
     
  
  This will open a VISA session to your device and will allow you to read from and write to the device.

Related Links:
Developer Zone Tutorial: GPIB Hardware and Software Specifications
Developer Zone Tutorial: GPIB Instrument Control Tutorial

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Report Date: 11/16/2007
Last Updated: 08/14/2008
Document ID: 4FF45NVG

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