Windows 10 Issues

[viSci]

I took the plunge myself and was wondering how others are fairing on Windows10.  Most of the issues I encountered have to do with default settings in W10 that allow background processes (like anti-malware) to just pop into memory at any time and suck the cpu dry.  I spent a whole day disabling and tweaking things to prevent thoughtless cpu hogging.  

[ShaunR]

I took the plunge myself and was wondering how others are fairing on Windows10.  Most of the issues I encountered have to do with default settings in W10 that allow background processes (like anti-malware) to just pop into memory at any time and suck the cpu dry.  I spent a whole day disabling and tweaking things to prevent thoughtless cpu hogging.  

 

It's difficult to know where to start with Windows 10. People are reporting that its background processes ARE malware 

[bjones]

A brave soul, indeed!  Considering it required me to run the installation three times (and on the third time manually disconnect all my external hard drives, optical drives, and peripherals) to get it to work...  Can't say I'm too optimistic.    Will report back when I've been running with it for a bit longer.

[dannyt]

Been running it for a week now on my development PC and seem OK with LabVIEW.

 

The update from Win 7 to Win 10 was problem free for me, but did take a long time.

 

My only real issues so far is with a Cisco VPN Client, that no longer works at all so I need to use a Windows 7 PC still to get access to my factory located test systems.

[viSci]

One thing that I found to be very helpful is a little utility call Process Tamer.  It does just what it says and immediately slowed down annoying windows background tasks.  I was going to revert back to Windows 7 but now everything is just groovy! 

[ShaunR]

One thing that I found to be very helpful is a little utility call Process Tamer.  It does just what it says and immediately slowed down annoying windows background tasks.  I was going to revert back to Windows 7 but now everything is just groovy! 

 

You know you only have 1 month to revert back if you decide you don't like the upgrade, don't you?

[Yair]

For the most part, I'm managing fine with Windows 10 (after setting a bunch of preferences I had which it decided to reset). Certain things about it are nice, like the window management. The two things which are still annoying me:

1. You can't pin arbitrary items to the start menu. If you want it there, you have to copy it to the correct folder and it appears in the apps list, from which you can pin it.
2. Windows Update decides on its own when it will install updates and restart your computer. If you ask it nicely, it will allow you to set when the time when it will restart on your own, but it *will* install and restart. Apparently this can be overridden with a group policy, which I have now set, so I will see if that works.

[Val Brown]

I've running LV 2015 on W10 since before NI Week and, once I got it set up, it all seems to be working fine. Yair I was able to pin a number of "arbitrary" apps to the Start Panel but it's a bit of an uncertain and occult process: I can't tell what actually worked and what didn't. One thing I did find out was that pinning an app to the Taskbar helped as a first step, but your local results may vary.

[Neil Pate]

I am also getting on OK with Win 10.

 

The start menu behaviour annoyed me so I installed Start10 which makes it behave more like a hybrid of Windows 7 (which I thought worked quite well) and Win 10. You can pin as normal, I have multiple versions of LabVIEW pinned.

[JKSH]

I upgraded my home PC (not my work PC yet) to Windows 10, and it's been a good experience so far except for a small annoyance with mouse wheels in LabVIEW: https://lavag.org/topic/19185-scroll-wheel-not-working-windows-10-labview-2015-parallels-vm/#entry115740

 

The start menu behaviour annoyed me so I installed Start10 which makes it behave more like a hybrid of Windows 7 (which I thought worked quite well) and Win 10. You can pin as normal, I have multiple versions of LabVIEW pinned.

 

I pin my frequently used apps to the Taskbar (one less click to open, compared to pinning to the start menu). For everything else, I treat it like LabVIEW Quick Drop: [Windows] + [First Few Letters of App Name] + [Enter]

[ThomasGutzler]

I've been running Windows 10 insider builds for a while with LabVIEW 2014 and haven't had any problems. I did start with a fresh install, not an upgrade from Windows 7. The only thing I had to fix was the scrolling for my Wireless Desktop 5000 mouse but the Wireless Desktop configuration application lets you select applications for which scrolling doesn't work and somehow makes it work. Neat.

I don't pin things in the start menu but I find it's too tile-y. Will have to look into that "Start10" thing

[task]

I'm running Windows 10 and Labview 2014 sp1. For some reason now I cannot do an ALT-TAB to look at my diagram while I'm running a program. The screen comes up but it will not allow me to select it.

 

Did I miss something in Labview?

 

Thanks.

[ASTDan]

I upgraded to Windows 10

 

I like the backup program better, Windows 10 boots faster.  I turned off updates, disabled tiles on the start menu.  I have noticed too that pining something to the start menu is nebulous.

 

I had trouble with my scanner driver.  I had to strip it off with on external tool and reinstall it.  After that it worked fine.

 

LabVIEW seems to work OK.

 

I was able to create a virtual machine with Oracle Virtual box much easier than windows 7.

 

So its still windows just newer...

[Yair]

I'm running Windows 10 and Labview 2014 sp1. For some reason now I cannot do an ALT-TAB to look at my diagram while I'm running a program. The screen comes up but it will not allow me to select it.

 

I don't see any issue like this with LV 2011 and 2015. I can alt-tab to any LV window or can alt-tab and use the mouse to click the relevant window. One thing to note is that the alt-tab dialog in Windows 10 does remember the original order of the windows and doesn't bunch all of the LV windows together, like older versions used to.

 

Also, to pin arbitrary files to the start menu, you need to place a shortcut to them in <user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu, which will add them to the start menu and then you can pin them. They're still only pinned as tiles, not as a list, but at least they're there.

[JKSH]

I don't see any issue like this with LV 2011 and 2015. I can alt-tab to any LV window or can alt-tab and use the mouse to click the relevant window. 

 

Same for me, with LV 2014 SP1. Alt+Tab and clicking work fine. I can also use Ctrl+E to switch between the Front Panel and Block Diagram.

 

 

One thing to note is that the alt-tab dialog in Windows 10 does remember the original order of the windows and doesn't bunch all of the LV windows together, like older versions used to.

 

Hallelujah (Windows 8 does that too, by the way) Now if only Windows would prevent LabVIEW from bringing all of its windows up to the foreground as soon as I activate a single LV window...

[Flame]

On 8/21/2015 at 2:12 PM, viSci said:

I took the plunge myself and was wondering how others are fairing on Windows10.  Most of the issues I encountered have to do with default settings in W10 that allow background processes (like anti-malware) to just pop into memory at any time and suck the cpu dry. And these testimonials of the wealthy affiliate are awesome as I spent a whole day disabling and tweaking things to prevent thoughtless cpu hogging.  

 

I know right. Upgrading to W10 was a pain in the ass. I still prefer windows 7.

Edited October 22, 2016 by Flame

[ShaunR]

OK. So I decided to evaluate Windows 10 - not as a desktop OS, but as a DAQ and automation platform like Windows 7 on PXI racks.

My conclusion was that it is no longer a viable platform for test/DAQ and automation.

There were 4 main killers for me.

1. Updates are forced by Microsoft when connected to the Internet which not only means that we no longer have control over versioning of a deployment but we also have no control over bandwidth usage. The only options are for immediate update or deferred (6 months) update. WE are no longer able to stage deployments with tested targets that are guaranteed to remain stable and prevent mutation of the customers system.
2. Resource usage by background windows processes that cannot be disabled are prohibitive for DAQ and unpredictable when they occur (yes I'm looking at you "Microsoft Common Language runtime native compiler")
3. It is opaque as to exactly what information is being sent to Microsoft and the system is set for maximum disclosure of private data as default. This means it is difficult or even impossible to guarantee a customers privacy. Even if a comprehensive assessment is made of leaked information, there is no confidence that settings will not be reverted or measures circumvented by future updates (see Item 1.)
4. Bandwidth usage is hijacked in order for M$ to deploy updates to nearby machines using "Background Intelligent Transfer"  (basically bittorrent). At present this can be disabled in the services but I am not confident that will always be the case. This has caused a couple of mobile applications to exceed limits and result in reduced service speeds and high data usage charges.

Edited May 25, 2016 by ShaunR

[Tim_S]

5 minutes ago, ShaunR said:

1. Updates are forced by Microsoft when connected to the Internet which not only means that we no longer have control over versioning of a deployment but we also have no control over bandwidth usage. The only options are for immediate update or deferred (6 months) update. WE are no longer able to stage deployments with tested targets that are guaranteed to remain stable and prevent mutation of the customers system.

My understanding is there is corporate versions that do not or can be set to not update automatically. This may not be the stock Dell computer, though.

[ShaunR]

50 minutes ago, Tim_S said:

My understanding is there is corporate versions that do not or can be set to not update automatically. This may not be the stock Dell computer, though.

Apparently they can only be deferred by months and security updates cannot be prevented at all.

[Tim_S]

5 minutes ago, ShaunR said:

Apparently they can only be deferred by months and security updates cannot be prevented at all.

Great. So the only way to prevent a test stand from going down due to a Windows update reboot is to create a completely isolated network. That does not bode well for remote equipment support and fast response to issues. Time to escalate plans to shift the actual testing portion into PXI/cRIO and make the Windows PC storage and HMI.

[ShaunR]

17 minutes ago, Tim_S said:

Great. So the only way to prevent a test stand from going down due to a Windows update reboot is to create a completely isolated network. That does not bode well for remote equipment support and fast response to issues. Time to escalate plans to shift the actual testing portion into PXI/cRIO and make the Windows PC storage and HMI.

You can always use Windows 7 until end of life. Linux is getting some love by NI and device manufacturers have standardised on TCPIP and USB so it's becoming a pretty good alternative if you don't need Vision. It seems the time is ripe for Linux RT Desktop :

[Tim_S]

6 minutes ago, ShaunR said:

You can always use Windows 7 until end of life. Linux is getting some love by NI and device manufacturers have standardised on TCPIP and USB so it's becoming a pretty good alternative if you don't need Vision. It seems the time is ripe for Linux RT Desktop :

My development cycle is quite long (years), so starting now means I'll be ready. Putting anything Linux on a plant floor would be interesting. I've recently had to explain to one plant's IT that it is a VERY-Bad-Idea (TM) to perform Windows updates during production and that was why the test stand incorrectly failed dozens of parts then rebooted.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

On 25-5-2016 at 5:06 PM, ShaunR said:

You can always use Windows 7 until end of life. Linux is getting some love by NI and device manufacturers have standardised on TCPIP and USB so it's becoming a pretty good alternative if you don't need Vision. It seems the time is ripe for Linux RT Desktop :

Actually even Vision is an option under Linux through OpenCV, although far from an out of the box experience as with NI IMAQ Vision. I've been using OpenCV on Windows in several proof of concept apps and been dabbling with the Linux side of that a little.

It definitely looks like W10 is not going to be used much for any real industrial application platform. Maybe the embedded variant has some more customization options, but that has its own bucket of complications.

Microsoft really doesn't know what they really want to do. This one is interesting but based on a platfom that is autoupdating forcefully it seems more useful to go directly to Linux for industrial applications.

Edited May 27, 2016 by rolfk

[ShaunR]

10 minutes ago, rolfk said:

Actually even Vision is an option under Linux through OpenCV, although far from an out of the box experience as with NI IMAQ Vision. I've been using OpenCV on Windows in several proof of concept apps and been dabbling with the Linux side of that a little.

It definitely looks like W10 is not going to be used much for any real industrial application platform. Maybe the embedded variant has some more customization options, but that has its own bucket of complications.

Interesting. Anything you can share?

I've been eying Linux with the advent of Windows 10. All my toolkits (except the MDI Toolkit) are tested and work under Linux - it is just the NI licencing toolkit that prevents distribution (for now) on that platform. Vision is a rare requirement for me but, none-the-less, I really want a single platform rather than "choices" dependent on requirements. That used to be Windows but it looks no longer fit-for-purpose. If the holes in support are gradually closed (preferably by NI) then I would make the transition to Linux as the first-choice platform.

I'm seriously thinking about formulating a "LabVIEW Linux" virtual machine image and distribution depending on licencing concerns since I have been using LabVIEW on VPSs for some time now for testing Websockets. That has given me some experience with Linux MIS and so now have standardised on LabVIEW, Codeblocks and CodeTyphon as a cross platform development configuration for Linux as well as Windows -  dual boot, VM or VPS. Makulu Linux has a feature whereby you can create a distribution as a clone of your desktop so I'm looking to see how that works 'cos that's brilliant and just the job!

At this point I am fairly comfortable about breaking 20-odd years of Windows only development with a move to Linux for test and automation.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

18 minutes ago, ShaunR said:

Interesting. Anything you can share?

Not simply like that. It was part of project work so copyright is an issue. And it is definitely a to big project to tackle as a one man show. One complication with OpenCV is that the newer API is C++ based so you will not get around to creating an intermediate shared library either. And unfortunately the IMAQ control does not seem to work on non Windows platforms eventhough it is mostly a built in control in LabVIEW itself and not provided by the IMAQ Vision software, so there is the need to add an additional element to handle efficient display of images in some form of external window and that is thanks to different windows managers not always straight forward.