Back-up LabVIEW and NI packages

[ht210]

Hello,

This may seem like an odd question, but is there a way to back-up the LabVIEW installation of a PC including all packages listed under NI's package manager? Basically, we want to "clone" all the National instruments software.

Our concern is that by backing only the VIs, we may lose a specific version of a driver/library/package when we reinstall LabVIEW causing the VI to not run as expected and having to go back to the VI and update the block diagram.

Background: A test stand is running an old version of LabVIEW (2017 or 2016) and we want to back up the installation and the VI project without cloning the hard drive given how Windows handles their licenses.

Let me know if I was clear enough or if you need any more input from me to come an answer.

Thanks!

[Bob_Schor]

When you install LabVIEW, you not only make many changes to the File System, many of them involving files in C:\Program Files\National Instruments and C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments, but additional file in such folders as the hidden folder C:\Program Data, files in the C:\Users folders, files in C:\Windows, and possibly other locations.  In addition, you make thousands (that's an estimate, which I suspect is probably low) of entries and changes to the Windows registry, a hidden System file that is critical for the proper operation of Windows.

There is also the "licensing" question to which you allude.  It is one thing to make a disk backup to allow you to restore your system with a licensed copy of LabVIEW, but it is a "question for the lawyers" for you to "restore" this to another PC without first removing it from the original machine (and even that might violate the License Agreement, which I haven't studied recently).

LabVIEW installation, and NIPM, have improved quite a bit in the last 3-6 months.  If I had to install LabVIEW on 5 PCs, I would definitely do them "one-at-a-time, together" (meaning I'd line them up, install NIPM on all of them, then go from PC to PC doing the installation "slowly, a piece at a time, and safely, rebooting between steps" (as has been described here).  If you are doing more than 5, you probably should investigate "legal Cloning", as I don't think that LabVIEW installation (which is fairly complex) will easily integrate with the kind of "Build a Standard System" packages that companies and Universities use to start from a "Standard Image" and do a batch Build.

Bob Schor