Matt_AM1

Reds, NGL, I don't understand what you're saying, but I'm gunna take a stab at it. It sounds like you have massive SSD with the various partitions for the specific versions of LabVIEW on it. From the VERY brief googling I've done, it sounds like BCDBoot sets up a boot a virtual hard drive (VHD). The VHD can be booted from windows (I am not sure what side-by side means with respect to booting the VHD, but I am assuming it means I can run the "real OS" and the "LV OS" versions of windows at the same time). I think BCDEdit allows me to modify the boot of the VHD or it is the command line execution that creates the VHD's and BCDBoot is the one that boots the VHD. So, assuming I am on the rightish track, would the VHD only contain information related to LV specifically, such as LV/MAX/other NI software/git with its specific diff/merge for the LV version? If so, then what would the "real OS" be in charge of with respect to LabVIEW? I guess what I'm not fully putting together is, why virtual hard drives? From my very basic (mis)understanding of things, the VHD can be mounted/unmounted at will to swap between the versions of LV, so why couldn't you do that with multiple partitions on a SSD? It sounds like that was Tim_S's solution, with the various flash drives being the VHDs in this scenario. Googling the difference, I see that VHDs are meant for virtual machines, so I am assuming that when you BCDBoot the VHD, you're booting a virtual machine's image to work in tandem with windows which contains the LV version and what not. Matt

ShaunR, Based on what you are saying, it looks like I'd need to go down the VM route. However, I'd like to verify I'm using the right jargon after rereading my initial message and reading your response. When I am saying portable, I mean that I would like to be able to transfer what toolkits and what not relatively easy between PC's. So if my PC crashes or I have to change PCs in a few years, I don't have to recreate my wheel and be super meticulous about everything. When I say isolated, I am thinking since I do dev work in 2 different versions, then those versions shouldn't be interfering with each other for common drivers, such as DAQmx. So to me, that means that they should never be able to see each other, thus isolated. If both of these are accurate to the jargon, then I do need to go down the VM route. However, I am unsure if what I think portable means is what it actually means 😅. Thanks, Matt

Hey Fancy Folk, I am looking for solutions to creating a portable and isolated LV Dev environment (2018 32 bit and 2024 64 bit along with various toolkits). From what I understand, I believe I need to go down the VM route for my needs, but I wanted to see what other people think because I don't know what I don't know. Background: I do dev work in LV 2018 and 2024 and want to isolate them from each other. I am also using git for version control and I don't want to have to continually tell git what version of diff/merge tool to use on a per repo basis - less clicks in my life the better. So, I am trying to make my future life easier since I currently know how things are set up and can recreate that wheel when things are settled vs when things go bad. Right now, I have LV 2018 and 2024 both installed on my PC and it works good enough, but I am sure I'll eventually get bitten by having both on my PC. My initial thought was to look into either a VM or Docker and create an image for both versions of LabVIEW. Googling around, it looks like NI said that Docker was a no go because NI Drivers need kernel mode drivers and user mode libraries (Are NI Drivers Supported on Docker Containers? - NI), which makes me think that VMs are the solution to my problem. However, NI also says that NI software should generally be good on VMs, but it is not officially supported (Are NI Products Supported on Virtual Machines (VMs)? - NI). I am not claiming to be a SW engineer and I am unsure what tools exist, so I wanted to see what you guys think and if you have any advice for how to proceed.

I am fairly new to source control in general and am trying to get git integrated with LabVIEW and am using TortiseGIT on my machine. I saw the pinned post about "run this script and things will be set up for ya" regarding LV Compare/merge, but it didn't work for me, so I am manually adding in the file extensions to TortiseGIT and I ran into a bit of a snag that I wanted to get some input on. I have LV 32 and 64 bit installed on my PC and am unsure how to handle adding in LV Compare/Merge. I say this because, as far as I am aware, TortiseGIT can only run 1 program per file type. When talking with ChatGPT about it, ChatGPT recommended making a script that checks the file's "bitness" then running the correct version of LV Compare/Merge and use that script as the "program". To me, it makes sense, but I also do not know what I do not know. I wanted to see if other people have run into this issue and what their solutions were. If it's a "google it" thing, can I get some direction regarding what I should be searching for? I don't mind putting in the legwork to learn, but I also don't know where to start with this issue and I've been flailing around in the dark for a bit and it's getting super frustrating. Thanks.