Installing Labview Applications

[TomWP]

Hi,

I have just read Jack Hamiltons presentation on Deploying LabVIEW applications using a custom installers. I have been faced with the same problem that is trying to be solved here. How to make custom, professional installs that may include more than just labVIEW or require more options. However when i was faced with this problem i had not seen this presentation. I solved the problem by using an off the shelf install builder (install shield express) and using the merge modules that come with the application builder. By selecting the relevant merge modules all the required components can be installed, including device drivers and registering ActiveX components. However when using this approach i did encounter some problems, some of the NI Merge Modules are not fully compatable (3D graph module), i spoke to NI and they are looking into it. On the whole i think this is a much simpler solution to the problem, install shield express only costs

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Yes, I too use Install shield Express. I find it very powerful for the price. In using merge modules however, my complaint is that there is absolutely no documentation regarding this capability. To make thing worse, using the merge modules the way we do is unsupported by NI. I'm sure if you report a bug, it will be put to the bottom of the priority list.

I really don't know why this is the case. Perhaps someone at Ni can enlighten us. I know there are many of us out there that want to use the merge modules and have knowledge about how to do this. Using an external installer allows us to customize how drivers are installed and selectively include what we need.

One thing to watch out for in using merge modules is that the refcount on the shared dlls inside the merge module is not incremented. What does this mean? The following scenario: If you install 2 separate LabVIEW applications on the same computer, they will both install the LV run-time engine from the merge module. This is fine however if you uninstall one of the applications, it removes the LV-runtime engine totally. This will cause the other application to be crippled.

[Tim Erickson]

Are there any merge modules for NI-DAQ?

[tuck]

I use Inno Setup (http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php) which is free (even for commercial), powerful, and versatile. I have three solutions for installing... 1 Build a 'dummy' application that creates a normal installer that you piggy-back in the inno setup installer and then remove the dummy exe after installation. 2 use the merge modules mentioned above to hand build (like in Visual Studio etc) a full installer which just contains those merges and piggy-back. 3 I'm not sure if this is ok, but you can also get a full LV runtime installer from the NI website (just search for it) and piggy-back that. You can use the MSI command line options to control these installs (make silent, force options etc) so you don't need to worry about the user cancelling or mis-configuring.