What are solutions to portable and isolated dev environments?

[Matt_AM1]

Hey Fancy Folk,

 

I am looking for solutions to creating a portable and isolated LV Dev environment (2018 32 bit and 2024 64 bit along with various toolkits).  From what I understand, I believe I need to go down the VM route for my needs, but I wanted to see what other people think because I don't know what I don't know.

 

Background:

I do dev work in LV 2018 and 2024 and want to isolate them from each other.  I am also using git for version control and I don't want to have to continually tell git what version of diff/merge tool to use on a per repo basis - less clicks in my life the better.  So, I am trying to make my future life easier since I currently know how things are set up and can recreate that wheel when things are settled vs when things go bad.  Right now, I have LV 2018 and 2024 both installed on my PC and it works good enough, but I am sure I'll eventually get bitten by having both on my PC.

 

My initial thought was to look into either a VM or Docker and create an image for both versions of LabVIEW.  Googling around, it looks like NI said that Docker was a no go because NI Drivers need kernel mode drivers and user mode libraries (Are NI Drivers Supported on Docker Containers? - NI), which makes me think that VMs are the solution to my problem.  However, NI also says that NI software should generally be good on VMs, but it is not officially supported (Are NI Products Supported on Virtual Machines (VMs)? - NI).  I am not claiming to be a SW engineer and I am unsure what tools exist, so I wanted to see what you guys think and if you have any advice for how to proceed.