Sigh. Been there, done that. The new NI Installers, confusingly-named the National Instruments Package Manager (NIPM), "not to be confused with" (or, more likely, "designed to be confused with") the VI Package Manager (VIPM), third-party software that runs the LabVIEW Tools Network and has been included with LabVIEW installations for about a decade, wants to handle installations and un-installations. Removals must be done carefully, as once you get into the situations such as you describe (and that I have encountered, myself), the only way I know to recover starts with reformatting the C: drive and reinstalling Windows (and everything else) from scratch. Use of a Registry Cleaner is almost a guarantee that a new OS will be needed.
Having (in the past year) gone through probably more than a dozen LabVIEW Install/Uninstall/Reinstall cycles on several Windows 10 and Windows 7 machines, I have some recommendations based on my experience with this process (fortunately, only one required a re-imaging of the machine, but it was a brand new desktop that I was just beginning to configure, so "starting over" was not that painful) (my two "starting-over" experiences revolved around the introduction of LabVIEW 2017).
- Decide on your OS. My recommendation is to use Windows 10 (x64). It appears (to me) to be fairly stable (though I'm not fan of "rolling updates") and is under support. Windows 7 (x64) is a non-unreasonable fallback, but I would not use Windows XP (unless you had to install LabVIEW 7 or older).
- You probably know that you need to install LabVIEW in "Version Order", oldest first. Try (really try) to keep your Version range within 5 years (fewer is better) -- that "usually" is OK.
- The default installation for LabVIEW is a separate "LabVIEW 20xx" folder under National Instruments Software. However, Drivers and MAX install "globally", requiring you to depend on "backward compatibility" if you have multiple versions. [I recall changing the default installation Directory when I installed multiple versions 7-8 years ago, but don't remember if this is still an option].
- If you choose to install LabVIEW versions before the NIPM "divide" (i.e. versions no later than 2016), be careful about using NI Updates -- don't install updates that go past LabVIEW 2016 or drivers past 2016.
Having given all of these dire warnings, my current systems (two laptops and two desktops, one desktop running Windows 7 x64 and the rest running Windows 10 x64) all have LabVIEW 2016 (32-bit), 2017 (32-bit) and 2018 (32-bit) installed and running happily. It was a little painful getting here, mainly due to an old "oversight" on my part, but things have been very stable for the past six months.
Bob Schor
