Using CVIRTE 9 with CVI 6

[awd]

I use CVI 6 on XP and have an application that started misbehaving unpredictably recently. I tried an evaluation version of CVI9, and found that using version 9 of the run-time engine solves the problem, even if the application is compiled using CVI 6. I downloaded version 9 of the RTE and tried to install it on the destination machine (which also has CVI 6 IDE legally installed), but the RTE installer refused to install the RTE in Windows\system32. However, if I manually copy the RTE files into my application directory, then it all works well.

My question is, does the RTE intsallation fail because it detects that I only have CVI 6 installed on the machine, and that using RTE 9 therefore infringes copyright? If so then this seems to be a problem as the current RTE (6.0.4.105) seems to be the source of the problems.

 Thanks

[RobertoBozzolo]

What I know about the RTE is that it is freely downloadable and installable on machines where a CVI application must be run. All RTEs are backward compatible, i.e. you can run a program with an RTE newer than the development system used, like in your case, and this is -or should be- safe when not better than using the original RTE (looking in the forums you will often see suggestions to install a newer RTE in order to solve some problems known to be addressed in more recent releases).

Upgrading the RTE on a system without the IDE installed had never problems in my experience, while I never attempted to upgrade the RTE  only on the machine I use for development so I cannot express any opinion on this.

In order to help someone to address your question, which RTE are you trying to install? And does the RTE installer report any error explaining its failure?

[Hillman]

Hi AWD,

Thanks for your post and I hope your well today.

As explained already, the CVI Run Time Engine are backwards compatiable. 

Could you please provide more details on the 'installation fails' error you see. Is this error seen by you because the files don't install? or do you get an error message? Could you also provide the exact version of CVI RT 6 and 9 that you've installed - incase I need to try to replicate this later on. 

We can also get more information on the error of the MSI Installer process. 

Windows

1. Open a command prompt by selecting Start » Run, typing cmd and then clicking the OK button.
2. From the command prompt, type the following:

   <path to product installer> /log "<path to desired location and name of log file>"

   Ensure that the <path to product installer> points to the folder containing setup.exe which launches the installer. For example, E:\setup.exe /log "C:\ErrorLog.txt" would run the installer found at E:\setup.exe and store the log file as C:\ErrorLog.txt.

   Note: If the /log parameter is not recognized, try using the /l*v parameter instead.

I'd be interested to see this document.

The only other suggestion I can make thus far , without more information would be to try cleaning up  your registry.

Description of the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility (External link)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

*Incase your missing a key.

Just to confirm that when your installing the machine is freshly booted, and that you have no NI Software running.

Please let me know some more details and hopefully we can get this issue resolved for you soon. 

[awd]

Sorry for the delay in replying...I was expecting an email when someone replied to my initial post, but it never came.

The original RTE is 6.0.4.105, and the CVI IDE tells me it is 6.6.0 (105).

The new RTE is 9.0.0.348

When trying to install the RTE, it gets to the window where it says "Start installation. Review summary before continuing". However, it says "No software will be installed or removed". There is only the option to cancel or go back. I have used the same installer on another machine that does not have CVI6 IDE on it, and it works fine on that machine.

I have tried the installation straight after a fresh boot, from an account with administrator privileges and with no other NI software running and it still fails as described above. I have not tried to delete the RTE files from the Windows\system32 directory and then trying to reinstall.

I have attached the log file as suggested.

[Hillman · Accepted solution]

Hi Awd,

Good afternoon and I hope your well today.

I would suggest repairing your install of the CVI run time engine. 

I would also suggest uninstalling the runtime engine, install the CVI 9 and then try installing CVI 6 - do you need the older run time for other applications? *otherwise just uninstall.

I have just installed CVI RunTime 6 and then CVI RunTime 9 (from the ni.com site) without issue. But, that was a clean machine.

Please let me know your thoughts, 

[JonathanN]

Hi Awd,

From what I have read from the posts, the behavior you are seeing of the CVI 9.0 RTE not installing on that machine is because you already have the 9.0 RTE installed on that sytsem via by installing the CVI 9 eval. The CVI distribution includes the CVI RTE and so basically what MSI is telling you is that there's nothing to install because you already have that version on the system.

If you have some CVI 6 executable that you want to run against the CVI 9.0 RTE, you just need to download and install the CVI 9.0 RTE and not the full eval.

Best Regards,

[awd]

Meant to reply to this yesterday but ran out of time...

Your suggestion to repair the RTE installation provided the solution, and the next post from Jonathan partially identified the issue. Right clicking on the cvirte.dll in windows\system32 and looking at the properties showed that this was in fact version 6.0.4.105, and this was the version reported by MAX. However when trying to repair the installation via Add/Remove Programs, the version of the RTE was reported as 9. I don't know how that got there - the evaluation copy of CVI 9 IDE was installed on a different machine and I tried to install the RTE on this machine using the proper IDE installer. Anyway, removing the RTE using Add/Remove Programs from Control Panel allowed the RTE installer to do its job and now all is well. I can only guess that I must have started to install RTE 9 at some point and then cancelled, but the installer has been left with the impression that RTE 9 was installed when it was not. Either that or I have tried to do it on an account that did not have admin rights, which then failed, but left the impression of having been installed.

Anyway, however I got there, the problem is solved!

Thanks to all who have offered their help - it is appreciated.