How do I get to the Virtual Instrument layer of a LabVIEW exe using ActiveX

[MrSmith]

The following knowledge base article explains why you can not get a reference to a VI insided of an executable, but it also says that if you enable ActiveX you can access the controls and indicators. So apparently it CAN be done, but I cannot locate anything that tells me the exact mechanism needed to do it.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/8545726A00272EB0862571DA005B896C

Here's a pertinent quote from the article:

"Enable the ActiveX interface for the EXE you are calling into and use the VI Server ActiveX interface (from the LabVIEW functions palette: "Connectivity»ActiveX»Automation Open) to run the VI (Get a VI Reference, Set the Control Values, Run the VI, Get the Indicator Values), making this change could potentially involve a lot of work for the caller of the function, and a little for the build specification."

Kind regards,

Jim Smith

[mikeporter]

Several years ago I did some work with this (LabVIEW 7 - 8 timeframe, 2004?).

There used to be an example for calling LabVIEW via ActiveX from Excel. I turned it into an executable and the process was not exactly straight forward. In any case I described the process pretty completely in a couple forum posts. I don't know how much, if any of it would still be applicable but it might be worth a look.

Mike ..