NI IVI Compliance Package 2.5

Documentation File

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Introduction

IVI Compliance Package (ICP) 2.5 is an update release of IVI Compliance Package 2.3. This release includes the following new features:

• IVI class driver support for LabVIEW 8.2
• Support for 64-bit integer attributes
• IVI class simulation drivers

Note: IVI class simulation drivers and IVI Soft Front Panels used to be distributed with the IVI Driver Toolset. Since the IVI Driver Toolset has been recently discontinued, the IVI class simulation drivers are now distributed with the IVI Compliance Package 2.5. The IVI Soft Front Panels are available upon request to instrument.drivers@ni.com.

Refer to the IVI Compliance Package Release Notes, Version 2.0, for general information about this product.

For more information about the following topics, refer to the IVI Compliance Package Release Notes:

• Detailed upgrade instructions
• IVI Shared Components overview and major structural changes to IVI products
• Class drivers API changes
• New installation directories

Caution: The IVI Configuration Store file format requires that all names be case sensitive. If you use logical names, driver session names, or virtual names in a program, make sure that the name you use matches the name defined in the IVI Configuration Store file exactly, without any variations in the case of the characters in the name.

Minimum System Requirements

To use IVI Compliance Package 2.5 for Windows, you must have the following items:

• Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 or Windows XP Professional
• Personal computer with a 200 MHz Pentium class or higher microprocessor
• 64 MB of RAM
• 150 MB of free hard disk space

Availability/Installation

IVI Compliance Package is included in the National Instruments Device Drivers CD Set. A stand-alone version is available on the Web.

Before installing IVI Compliance Package 2.5, consider the following issues:

• If you plan to use IVI Compliance Package 2.5 with LabVIEW, LabWindows™/CVI™, and/or Measurement Studio, make sure that you have already installed LabVIEW version 7.1 or later, LabWindows/CVI version 6.0 or later, and/or Measurement Studio version 6.0 or later.
• National Instruments recommends that you close all other applications before you install IVI Compliance Package 2.5.

To install the stand-alone, Web-only IVI Compliance Package 2.5 version, complete the following steps:

1. Download the IVI Compliance Package 2.5 self-extracting archive from http://www.ni.com/downloads by navigating through the Drivers and Updates link.
2. Start the installation by double-clicking the self-extracting archive.
3. Click OK to begin installation.
4. Follow the directions that appear on the screen.

Known Incompatibilities

• There are no known incompatibilities with upgrading from previous IVI Compliance Package versions to IVI Compliance Package 2.5.
• NI-Spy version 2.2 and earlier are not compatible with IVI Compliance Package 2.5. If you use NI-Spy version 2.2 or earlier, do not upgrade to IVI Compliance Package 2.5.
• NI Calibration Executive version 2.1 is not compatible with IVI Compliance Package 2.5. If you use NI Calibration Executive version 2.1, do not upgrade to IVI Compliance Package 2.5.
• NI Switch Executive version 1.0 is not compatible with IVI Compliance Package 2.5. If you use NI Switch Executive version 1.0, do not upgrade to IVI Compliance Package 2.5.
• If you already have IVI Driver Toolset 1.1 installed, you must uninstall IVI Driver Toolset 1.1 before installing IVI Compliance Package 2.5. By uninstalling IVI Driver Toolset 1.1, you are uninstalling class simulation drivers, soft front panels, and NI-Spy. IVI Compliance Package 2.5 does not restore these components to the system. There are no known incompatibilities with IVI Driver Toolset 2.0 and IVI Compliance Package 2.5.

Installed Components

IVI Compliance Package 2.5 installs the following components:

• IVI class drivers
• IVI class driver LabWindows/CVI support
• IVI class driver C++ wrappers for Measurement Studio
• IVI class driver wrappers for LabVIEW 8.0 and 8.2
• IVI class simulation drivers
• IVI class driver examples for LabWindows/CVI, LabVIEW, and Measurement Studio
• IVI Shared Components, version 1.2.1
• IVI configuration plug-in for Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX) 3.0 and later
• Online help

Note: The IVI Compliance Package 2.5 stand-alone, web-only distribution does not install NI-Spy or MAX. You can install NI-Spy and MAX using several other National Instruments products, including the NI Device Drivers CD Set.

Note: IVI Class Driver files are no longer installed in the VXIPNP directory. These files will continue to be installed in the IVI directory.

Uninstall Considerations

Complete the following steps to uninstall IVI Compliance Package 2.5:

1. Select Start»Settings»Control Panel»Add or Remove Programs.
2. Select National Instruments Software and click Remove.
3. Select NI IVI Compliance Package 2.5 and click Uninstall.

Note: After you uninstall IVI Compliance Package 2.5, the IVI Shared Components remain on the system. Complete the following steps to uninstall the IVI Shared Components:

1. Select Start»Settings»Control Panel»Add or Remove Programs.
2. Select IVI Shared Components and click Change/Remove.

Note: If you installed IVI Compliance Package 2.5 as part of another distribution that depends on IVI Compliance Package 2.5, you cannot uninstall IVI Compliance Package 2.5 without uninstalling the dependent product.

Known Issues

• If you install ICP 2.5 with LabWindows/CVI 7.0 installed and then upgrade to LabWindows/CVI 7.1, you must complete the following steps to modify the ICP 2.5 installation to get IVI support for LabWindows/CVI 7.1:
  1. Select Start»Settings»Control Panel»Add or Remove Programs.
  2. Select National Instruments Software and click Change.
  3. Select NI IVI Compliance Package 2.5 and click Modify.
  4. For the CVI Support feature under IVI Class Drivers, select Remove this feature and complete the installation.
  5. Repeat steps 1–3.
  6. For the CVI Support feature under IVI Class Drivers, select Install this feature to a local drive and complete the installation.
  This process removes IVI class driver support for LabWindows/CVI 7.0 and adds this support for LabWindows/CVI 7.1.
• The following IVI products are incompatible with IVI Compliance Package 2.5:
  • IVI Driver Toolset (IDT) 1.1
  • Basic IVI Class Drivers (BICD) version 2.4 and earlier
  • IVI Engine 1.83 and earlier
  Do not install the preceding products after installing IVI Compliance Package 2.5. These IVI products are also included as part of other National Instruments software products, such as the following products:
  • LabVIEW 6.1 and earlier
  • TestStand 2.0
  • Measurement Studio 6.0 and earlier
  • NI-SCOPE 2.1.4 and earlier
  • NI-DMM 2.0.1 and earlier
  • NI-SWITCH 1.6.1 and earlier
  • NI-FGEN 1.6 and earlier
  If an upgrade is available for these products, National Instruments recommends that you upgrade to the latest version. Otherwise, when you install any of the preceding products after installing IVI Compliance Package 2.5, you must disable any visible IVI–related features in the feature selection tree. If there are not any visible IVI features in the feature selection tree, you must complete the following steps to repair the IVI Compliance Package 2.5 installation:
  1. Select Start»Settings»Control Panel»Add or Remove Programs.
  2. Select National Instruments Software and click Change.
  3. Select IVI Compliance Package 2.5 and click Repair.
• LabVIEW users: Downcasting from a class driver to a specific driver using property nodes may return an error in the following cases:
  • You use a combination of specific driver VIs and specific driver property nodes.
  • You use a specific driver property node with inherent properties.
  Use one of the following workarounds to avoid this error:
  • Do not use specific driver property nodes.
  • Use specific driver property nodes but without any inherent properties and not in the conjunction with specific driver VIs.
• LabVIEW users: A VI that makes calls to an IVI class driver and an IVI specific driver in parallel by branching off of the same instrument handle will result in an IVI_ERROR_NOT_INITIALIZED error being returned from the call to the class driver.
• Measurement Studio and LabWindows/CVI users: The IVI class driver examples use a default logical name that might differ in case from the logical names in the IVI Configuration Store. If you try to run the examples with the default logical names, the examples might not run successfully. However, you can choose to provide a logical name rather than use the default logical name. The name you provide must match the logical name in the IVI Configuration Store exactly, including the character case. Logical names stored in the IVI Configuration Store can be accessed and modified in MAX.
• Measurement Studio 6.0 users: If you install Measurement Studio 6.0 after installing IVI Compliance Package 2.5, then the old IVI class examples install but do not compile. You must run the Modify option on the IVI Compliance Package 2.5 installer and enable the CVI Support feature to get the new examples. In some cases where either you have edited some of the example files or other old IVI files are still found on the system, running the Modify option does not update the files. In this case, you must also run the Repair option on the IVI Compliance Package 2.5 installer after running the Modify option to get the correct files.
• Measurement Studio 6.0 users: If you install the following products in the following order:
  1. NI-SWITCH 1.6.1 and earlier
  2. IVI Compliance Package 2.5
  3. Measurement Studio 6.0
  you might encounter an error message about the IVI MAX provider during installation of Measurement Studio 6.0. You can click OK on the error dialog to continue normal installation. This error does not affect your software products, and your software products will continue to run normally.
• National Instruments IVI libraries, tools, and utilities support only single-byte character strings. You cannot use multi-byte characters, such as those commonly used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean operating systems. Only single-byte characters, such as ASCII characters, may be passed to IVI function calls, used to set directory paths, and used to create entries in the MAX IVI Configuration Utility.
• If you use NI-SWITCH 1.6.1 or earlier, initializing NI-SWITCH sessions with independent topologies causes a run-time error. If you use independent topologies, upgrade to NI-SWITCH 2.0 or later.
• Installing TestStand 2.0.1 Session Manager over IVI Compliance Package 2.5 Session Manager breaks TestStand 2.0.1 IVI Step Types. This break causes the IVI logical names to not appear in the IVI Step Type in TestStand. Instead, an invalid logical name error appears. However, IVI devices continue to function in LabVIEW. To fix this issue, repair the IVI Compliance Package 2.5 distribution.
• IVI help in MAX requires Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher. Without Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, IVI category help and the dynamic item help does not appear in MAX.
• Using IVI class drivers and NI-DMM 2.1 with NI-Spy running can cause LabVIEW or LabWindows/CVI to crash. Upgrade to the latest version of NI-DMM.