HYH

I still have a SSP subscription called "Multi-IDE Bundle". This allows me to use all programming languages from NI. So I am happy. For a little time more, as this Bundle is no more. So I am stuck with what I have. Which is also fine with me. For all the software I don't have SSP for, I can still download them and activate them on a trial basis. You get the usual 7 days or so of trial. However, if you avoided installing a License Manager version newer than 4.7 ( that is software released before 2021 or so ) you will be able to set back the computer clock to the installation time for a certain module and then the module will run as activated again for some days. This is clearly not usable for commercial purposes except testing and learning. So you can download old evaluation software made before 2018..2019 from the NI FTP site as mentioned and test/try it and get wiser. Without stress. The catch here is that you should not install anything new marked as 2021. Like LabVIEW 2021. It will install a License Manager stamp'ed 2020 or newer, where NI has removed support for the clock set-back feature. And you cannot revert to an older License Manager except by re-imaging. 2018 was also the year where NI introduced their "Big Business" initiative. View some the NI-Days videos from 2018 to see the NI Sales excitement. Updated DIAdem, FlexLogger, InsightCM, InstrumentStudio, SystemLink and LabVIEW. But since then nothing meaningful new released related to LabVIEW. So LabVIEW 2018 SP1 will be my final version for some years. Actually, NI deliberately removed features from 2019 so I cannot use it, nor any newer version. Regards Henning

Here is a little story about the dilemma I have with subscription. Should I have one or should I just stop and use what I have now. I have been a happy SSP customer for 20+ years. Because every 4..5 years I run into a problem where I need assistance from NI. Not to fix problems in my code, but to fix problems in LabVIEW. I develop and maintain a test system for our production including an application with a big VI having a complexity of 18. It killed the LabVIEW 2010 compiler which NI resolved by introducing the hybrid compiler in LabVIEW 2010 SP1. And introducing the ini file setting "CompilerCodeComplexityThreshold". Smooth sailing with 2010 SP1 till around 2016 where I decided that it was time to look for a newer LabVIEW base version. Various problems were found before I finally settled on LabVIEW 2018 SP1. Which I am still using. A very nice version. One problem found and fixed was that NI changed the hybrid compiler again in LabVIEW 2015. That meant that every time I pressed Run after a code change the compiler would compile for 4 minutes before actually running, whereas it took 15.20 seconds in earlier versions. This was of course a complete no-go. NI came to the rescue again. And as other customers before me had the same problem NI had made a new ini setting "EnableLegacyCompilerFallback" to solve this problem. Recently I thought it was time to look for a new LabVIEW base version. And ran into the old problem. LabVIEW 2019 and newer doesn't support the "EnableLegacyCompilerFallback" anymore. So I contacted NI support to get help. And the support engineer were able to reproduce the problem. But now comes the real problem. NI R&D told the support engineer that the 2015 ini setting were a hack ( their words ) and that is was now unsupported because they would not maintain the hybrid compiler in the future. According to them it meant that they should write the same code twice. Meaning more testing I guess. So I am stuck at LabVIEW 2018 SP1. No more upgrades. Not that I am very unhappy with that. Not much has been improved since in LabVIEW. NI kindly suggested me to re-write the code to reduce the complexity. Probably a multi year project. But now to the dilemma. Should I continue with a yearly subscription, knowing that I cannot use any new LabVIEW version being released. If NI changes their mind in the future I can jump onto the bandwagon again then without having to pay big money for a new license. Fortunately I have another half year before the current SSP period is running out. So time to think. Regards Henning