LabVIEW licensing

[Cat]

Hellooo?  Anybody home?

For those of you who don't remember (or weren't even born yet when I started posting here 😄), I work for the US Navy and use a whole bunch of LabVIEW code.  We're being forced to "upgrade" to Windows 11, so figured we might as well bite the bullet and upgrade from LV2019 to LV2024 at the same time.  And then the licensing debacle began...

Due to our operating paradigm, we currently use a LV2019 permanent disconnected license for our software development. This was very straightforward back then.  But not so much with LV2024 and the SaaS situation. Add to this the fact that I can't talk to NI directly and have to go thru our govt rep for any answers.  And he and I are not communicating very well.

I'm hoping someone here has an answer to what I think should be a really simple question:  If I have a "perpetual" license with 1 year service duration for LabVIEW, at the end of that year, if I don't renew the service, can I still use LabVIEW like always, as if I still had my old permanent license?  I realize I would not have any more support or upgrades, but that's fine.

I've read thru the threads here and in the NI forum about this, but they mostly ended back when no one really knew how it was all going to shake out.  So are we locked into either our ancient LV versions forever, or are we going to be paying Emerson/NI every year for something we don't really need?

Cat

[LogMAN]

Welcome to the forums!

1 hour ago, Cat said:

If I have a "perpetual" license with 1 year service duration for LabVIEW, at the end of that year, if I don't renew the service, can I still use LabVIEW like always, as if I still had my old permanent license?

Yes this is exactly how the good old perpetual license works. Even without SSP the license is valid indefinitely.

At my work we also stayed with LabVIEW 2019 for our codebase. The old licenses are still valid and haven’t been renewed.

We have an additional subscription license for support reasons, though.

[Neil Pate]

2 hours ago, Cat said:

Hellooo?  Anybody home?

For those of you who don't remember (or weren't even born yet when I started posting here 😄), I work for the US Navy and use a whole bunch of LabVIEW code.  We're being forced to "upgrade" to Windows 11, so figured we might as well bite the bullet and upgrade from LV2019 to LV2024 at the same time.  And then the licensing debacle began...

Due to our operating paradigm, we currently use a LV2019 permanent disconnected license for our software development. This was very straightforward back then.  But not so much with LV2024 and the SaaS situation. Add to this the fact that I can't talk to NI directly and have to go thru our govt rep for any answers.  And he and I are not communicating very well.

I'm hoping someone here has an answer to what I think should be a really simple question:  If I have a "perpetual" license with 1 year service duration for LabVIEW, at the end of that year, if I don't renew the service, can I still use LabVIEW like always, as if I still had my old permanent license?  I realize I would not have any more support or upgrades, but that's fine.

I've read thru the threads here and in the NI forum about this, but they mostly ended back when no one really knew how it was all going to shake out.  So are we locked into either our ancient LV versions forever, or are we going to be paying Emerson/NI every year for something we don't really need?

Cat

Welcome back! Yes we remember you 🙂

So I think you can now actually buy perpetual licenses again. I have not needed to do this myself as my org has an enterprise agreement with NI, but it is possible (I think...)

[JKSH]

5 hours ago, Neil Pate said:

So I think you can now actually buy perpetual licenses again.

Yes you can. The official form is at https://www.ni.com/en/forms/perpetual-software-licenses-labview.html

Some things to keep in mind:

• There is a current promotion (valid till the end of December 2024) where those who used to have an SSP can renew it today as if the SSP never expired in the first place. That means you can get the latest version of LabVIEW, under a perpetual license, at a discounted price (compared to buying it "new"): https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/LabVIEW-subscription-model-for-2022/m-p/4398958#M1296289
• Quotes/sales are now handled by external distributors, rather than Emerson/NI.
• Lots of people have reported that they didn't get a response to their quote requests, or didn't get the expected discount applied. If that's the case, message Ahmed Eisawy, the Director of Test Software Commercialization (who wrote the forum post in my link above) and he'll get it sorted out.

[ShaunR]

14 hours ago, Cat said:

Hellooo?  Anybody home?

For those of you who don't remember (or weren't even born yet when I started posting here 😄), I work for the US Navy and use a whole bunch of LabVIEW code.  We're being forced to "upgrade" to Windows 11, so figured we might as well bite the bullet and upgrade from LV2019 to LV2024 at the same time.  And then the licensing debacle began...

Due to our operating paradigm, we currently use a LV2019 permanent disconnected license for our software development. This was very straightforward back then.  But not so much with LV2024 and the SaaS situation. Add to this the fact that I can't talk to NI directly and have to go thru our govt rep for any answers.  And he and I are not communicating very well.

I'm hoping someone here has an answer to what I think should be a really simple question:  If I have a "perpetual" license with 1 year service duration for LabVIEW, at the end of that year, if I don't renew the service, can I still use LabVIEW like always, as if I still had my old permanent license?  I realize I would not have any more support or upgrades, but that's fine.

I've read thru the threads here and in the NI forum about this, but they mostly ended back when no one really knew how it was all going to shake out.  So are we locked into either our ancient LV versions forever, or are we going to be paying Emerson/NI every year for something we don't really need?

Cat

Welcome back. Retirement not all it was cracked up to be? 

My only comment about this (because I still use LV 2009-best version ever) is that generally:

1. Never do it in the middle of a project. Upgrading LabVIEW is a huge project risk.
2. Don't upgrade if the software already works and you are adding to it (only use it on new projects).
3. Only upgrade if everyone else in your team upgrades at the same time.
4. Upgrade if there are specific features you cannot do without.
5. Upgrade  if it will greatly reduce the time to delivery (unlikely but it has been known).
6. Upgrade if there is a project stopping bug that is addressed in the upgrade you are considering.
7. Remember that you can have multiple versions on the same machine. You don't need (and should never) go and recompile all your old projects.
8. 

Edited November 15 by ShaunR

[hooovahh]

We bought a new perpetual license of LabVIEW for our VIA a few months ago.  It worked just like the old one.  I was able to add it to the VLA software, then create disconnected licenses for my users, or machines. The discount offered was frankly way more than we were expecting.  It wasn't in the budget this year, but my manager was able to push it through. When this year is up, we will look into if it makes financial sense to purchase another year or not. I think we skipped 3 years of software buying, so upper management was happy to have saved those years in software cost, and am grateful we didn't take NI up on their offer to get a locked in price for 3 years on the subscription model.

Oh and as for Windows 11, it doesn't have to be all bad.  We have a set of software that gets installed on a base Windows 11 that uses OpenShell to bring the start menu back, ExplorerPatcher, and a couple WinAero Tweaker settings to do things like have the normal context menu, bring paint back, set remote desktop, and various other things people are used to. None of my users so far have realized it isn't Windows 10.  These tweaks shouldn't be necessary, but at least there is options to make it better.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

As of yesterday, November 18, the Perpetual licenses for LabVIEW and LabVIEW+ are officially back and should be directly orderable through the normal LabVIEW order page . But yes compared to before when the subscription was pushed down our throat the costs have significantly increased. I would say it is almost a 2.5* price increase if I remember correctly. The current Professional Developer price is higher than what the Developer Suite used to be back then, which also included LabVIEW Realtime and LabVIEW FPGA and just about any possible toolkit there was.

[Antoine Chalons]

Quote

2.5* price increase

Totaly justified by productivity gains brought by all the amazing new features, right?

Someone has to pay for the NXG failure I guess.

Edited November 19 by Antoine Chalons

[Cat]

Thanks all!  I'm glad to hear there's a (slightly tarnished) silver lining in the dark cloud of this new paradigm. 

We have a ELA with NI for basically what used to be the Developer's Suite.  I've finally figured out the concern about having to pay perpetually for a perpetual license is coming from our contracts people.  Now I've got to convince them that they just have to pay for the first year of the service part and after that we don't need it.

(and Shaun, I love retirement, but kids these days just don't know how to program like us old folks 🤣)

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

20 hours ago, Cat said:

Thanks all!  I'm glad to hear there's a (slightly tarnished) silver lining in the dark cloud of this new paradigm. 

We have a ELA with NI for basically what used to be the Developer's Suite.  I've finally figured out the concern about having to pay perpetually for a perpetual license is coming from our contracts people.  Now I've got to convince them that they just have to pay for the first year of the service part and after that we don't need it.

So they would rather like to pay a yearly subscription (and have their developers loose access once finance decides to stop the recurring payment) than a one time fee and decide at the end of the year if they want to fork over another 25% of the then actual license price to stay in the maintenance program? Sounds like a typical MBA logic! 😀

But if you own old perpetual licenses and can proof it you get to actually renew them by simply paying the Maintenance Support Program (MSP) fee of 25% of the full price. NI has publicly stated that, until mid 2025, they will waive all late fees for lapsed MSPs (basically nobody could possibly still have an active MSP at this point after NI forced everybody to go to SAAS after January 1, 2022). The MSP is actually still slightly cheaper than the SAAS fee, and rightly so, people paying for the perpetual license paid royally for the initial license.

Edited November 20 by Rolf Kalbermatter