Upgrade to LV2019?

[Cat]

So I'm upgrading from LV2016 to LV2019.  Or attempting to, anyway.  I have to use the offline version, and it keeps bailing at something like "ni-opc-support", and giving me a very unhelpful, "check your internet connection" message.  Hello, this is supposed to be an offline installation?!?

My other complaint is that I've  installed every version of LV since 2.5 in a "LabVIEW" folder -- no version number added -- and I can't figure out how to make the NI Package Manager let me do that.  So I've ended up with 3 or 4 different LabVIEWxxxx directories (depending on how far things get before the install crashes).  And if I completely uninstall all NI software, NI Package Manger still thinks it's installed and won't reinstall, but since it's not really there, there's no way to fix it. 

I'm on my third hard drive copy.

Hmm.  Sorry, I didn't mean to turn this into a b!tch session. 🙄

My question is whether or not I should uninstall just LabVIEW 2016 (leave everything else on there) before attempting to upgrade?  I'm not sure how much I have to take off to get a "clean" enough install, but not too "clean".  If that's even the problem.

And on a "funny" note, I just saw that LV2019 SP1 was released last week (I've been using 2019 f1).  I'm downloading the offline version at the moment.  My screaming fast work network is telling me I only have 3 days until the download is complete...

 

Cat

[TomOrr0W]

Hi Cat,

I haven't tried an offline install or non-standard location install of any of the NIPM products yet, so I can't help you on the main issues.  Wiping all prior NI software (one thing NIPM makes easy is uninstalling everything but itself) before installing LV2019 seemed to work well for me on a couple testers.

 

You mentioned LV2019 SP1, which might have some more caveats for offline installs.  NI changed their license manager again with that version - I would be interested to see if it works offline at all (there seems to no longer be a way to cancel the activation login dialog and enter codes, but maybe something will change when offline):

https://forums.ni.com/t5/Volume-License-Manager-and/NILM-4-5-Feedback-Questions/td-p/3984686

I've felt for a while now that the NI License Manager 4.x versions are vastly inferior to the 3.x versions.

[Neil Pate]

You are not alone Cat. I got a similar error and after battling with NIPM for a weeks or so gave up and just used a different computer. I was getting a similar error message which is totally nuts as it was also for the offline installer. 

[hooovahh]

The "Check your internet" is a catch all error basically saying it couldn't install, and it must be because the internet is down right?...right?  For me I got that error when I had a bad stick of ram in a computer, and it would uncompress a package, and then the CRC would fail.  I'd restart the installer over and over until it worked but the computer had all kinds of other problems.

The Offline installer including drivers and several other things is a bit crazy.  I mean will the community edition also be 25+GB in size?  I'd usually download the whole developer suite in the past anyway so it is on the order of the same size as that was.  The Web install however was perfect.  It would prompt you on what you wanted to download and then install offline using those things worked great, but no more.

Sorry I'm not from the 2.x era LabVIEW and the idea of installing it in anything other than the default install location of "LabVIEW 20xx" seems crazy to me.  I suggest embracing the change...from 2003.  Package manager does decide where it goes and I saw several people complain that they couldn't even install LabVIEW to any place other than C:\ drive without editing the registry.

When I go to a new version of LabVIEW I just leave the one that's already there.  I mean I usually don't upgrade all projects at once and some maybe in the older version so I just install them side by side.  I think the most I've had installed was probably 7 or 8.  I guess what I'm saying is I've never uninstalled a version of LabVIEW, and I would expect problems if I did.  I mean honestly it should work just fine, but I wouldn't expect it to.