Stable operation of applications on Windows 11

[kali]

Hello everyone

I have a question for my more experienced colleagues in LabVIEW programming

I use various applications supplied by a third-party company, built using LV2020 and RunTime 8.5, 2016, 2020 and VISA 4.6. Recently, I’ve noticed that various stability issues have started to occur whilst they’re running (freezing, slow performance, loss of communication via COM ports, etc.)
Consequently, I began to look into the matter and discovered that LV2020 does not support Windows 11, let alone the aforementioned drivers and RunTime.
Is there any way to run such applications stably on Windows 11 without having to modify them or rebuild them using a newer version of LabVIEW, such as 2025?

[crossrulz]

Assuming you don't have any applications installed that actually need the 8.5 or 2016 runtime, I would start by updating VISA to 2022Q3. That is the first version that officially is supported on Windows 11 and should still be fully compatible with LabVIEW 2020. That may potentially fix your communication issues, but no guarantees.

[kali]

OK thanks, I’ll try this solution and hope it sorts out my problems.
But as for the applications I use: my suppliers have informed me that one of them requires the RT 8.5 runtime environment to work properly, whilst the other two require RT 2016 and 2020. In this case, RT 2022 might resolve the issues, but the transition from version 8.5 to 2022 is a very long process, and I’m not sure whether that environment will support such old applications.

[ShaunR]

VISA would be my first port of call. NI state that multiple run-time versions can co-exist side-by-side but ...

Quote

Note that EXEs built in LabVIEW 2016 or earlier can't be run in a newer version of the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine. Use the same version of LabVIEW Run-Time Engine to run the EXE as the LabVIEW version that you used to build it.

After 2016 you can configure the run-time version, IIRC.

If you are really stuck, you can try running in a VM on an older version of Windows.

[umberperch68]

 

kali said:

Hello everyone

I have a question for my more experienced colleagues in LabVIEW programming

I use various applications supplied by a third-party company, built using LV2020 and RunTime 8.5, 2016, 2020 and VISA 4.6. Recently, I’ve noticed that various stability issues have started to occur whilst they’re running (freezing, slow performance, loss of communication via COM ports, etc.)
Consequently, I began to look into the matter and discovered that LV2020 does not support Windows 11, let alone the aforementioned drivers and RunTime.
Is there any way to run such applications stably on Windows 11 without having to modify them or rebuild them using a newer version of LabVIEW, such as 2025?

 

Windows compatibility mode might hide a few UI quirks, but it won't fix an old VISA stack losing COM ports. Feels like the realistic ceiling is keeping that setup on a supported Windows build or getting an updated vendor package.