Runtime engine not being installed by application installer or Runtime installer

[jmorris]

Hello again all you helpful forum-goers!

I have a LabVIEW 2021 SP1 application for which I've built an installer that generally works great.  I built it on a Windows 10 computer but have successfully tested it in a Windows 11 virtual environment.

However, I have gotten a report from a customer that they ran the installer, everything appeared to work fine with no errors, but when they restarted their computer and then tried to run my application, they got an "Unable to locate the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine" error dialog, asking for the 2021 32-bit RTE.  The customer support member of my company that talked to the user said they also didn't appear to have the RTE installed on their computer when he helped them check.

If the user's IT department somehow blocked the install of the RTE, is it possible that my application's installer would have finished without any errors being displayed?

Also, my customer support guy walked the user through downloading the RTE from NI's website directly, and installed it, but then afterwards it didn't look like it had been installed and they still got the same error when running my application.

The user's machine is Windows 11, Intel Core i5-7300U CPU, 16 GB RAM, Windows 11 Enterprise 64-bit (version 23H2), HP EliteBook 840 G5.

Any suggestions as to what is going on and how to fix it would be very much appreciated!

[Scott_Richardson · Accepted solution]

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If the user's IT department somehow blocked the install of the RTE, is it possible that my application's installer would have finished without any errors being displayed?

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Unlikely; my experience from when working with NI's installer technology team the failures when IT/security application block installation, they will block the MSI from successfully installing, and I have never seen the OS MSI Engine pass success back to NIPM, so NIPM should see and process any failure to install an MSI or package.

Based on the manually installing again and not seeing it might suggest that the MSI Engine thinks that the LabVIEW Runtime is already installed and it thinks that installing it is not necessary.

1) Which LabVIEW Build Specification are you using to create the installer, the older Installer specification, or their newer Package specification?

2) If NIPM is installed, what do you see on that system wrt the LabVIEW 2021 Runtime?

3) Could someone have manually removed the LabVIEW Runtime from disk, i.e. the "C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\Shared\LabVIEW Run-Time\2021" directory?

4) What is under the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\National Instruments\LabVIEW Run-Time\21.0" registry key name?

[billko]

Have you ever tried installing this to a PC that has never had anything LabVIEW-related installed?  It could be that the runtime never gets installed, but will run on a PC with LabVIEW installed because the runtime is already installed.

Edit:

Oops, I didn't see that you manually installed the RTE.

[jmorris]

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@Scott_Richardson wrote:

Based on the manually installing again and not seeing it might suggest that the MSI Engine thinks that the LabVIEW Runtime is already installed and it thinks that installing it is not necessary.

1) Which LabVIEW Build Specification are you using to create the installer, the older Installer specification, or their newer Package specification?

2) If NIPM is installed, what do you see on that system wrt the LabVIEW 2021 Runtime?

3) Could someone have manually removed the LabVIEW Runtime from disk, i.e. the "C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\Shared\LabVIEW Run-Time\2021" directory?

4) What is under the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\National Instruments\LabVIEW Run-Time\21.0" registry key name?

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Responses:

1) I'm not familiar with the distinction, but I would strongly suspect the older Installer specification; this is a project that I've had for 20+ years now.

2) My understanding is that the user has had no other NI software installed on their computer, therefore no NIPM.  This seems like it would also preclude the possibility of an existing Runtime installation somehow preventing the installation of the 2021 Runtime.

3) If my understanding of no NI software having been previously installed is correct, then no.  If there was previously a run-time installed (and therefore the installed didn't think it was necessary), but then the necessary files were removed, e.g., from the directory you listed, that would explain what we are seeing, but wouldn't that leave a listing in the Windows "Apps" control panel?  I will have my customer support guy ask the user about if they have anything in that directory tree regardless.

4) I will have my support guy ask the user, but can non-admin users even see the Windows registry values?

Thank you for your time and suggestions!

[Scott_Richardson]

(1-3) OK, I think if NIPM is not installed then the system will have the NI Software item in Add/Remove Programs and it launches a dialog that allows you to uninstall NI built products including your own, so can you confirm that in that dialog you see your product and no LabVIEW Runtime?

4) Viewing registry with RegEdit.exe requires elevation, however, the following command-line call returns the information without the need to elevate:

REG QUERY "HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\National Instruments\LabVIEW Run-Time\21.0" /s

Output will likely be: 

Path REG_SZ C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\Shared\LabVIEW Run-Time\2021\
Version REG_SZ 21.0.1
VersionString REG_SZ 2021 SP1

[jmorris]

Thanks for the update!  I will let you know what I find out.  It belatedly occurs to me that if the user is running my app's installer than they are probably an admin, but it's nice to have a work around just in case. 👍

On a side note, my app gets its own entry in the Add/Remote Programs list, but I'll verify that it is there while the NI Software entry isn't, or if it is what it shows.

[jmorris]

Just to close the loop on this, Scott was correct; the issue was a previous installation's files still lingering on the system despite not being listed in the Add/Remove Programs control panel, apparently causing LabVIEW to think the Runtime was already installed.

What I heard from my tech support guy who worked with the customer was that they found more NI files or folders to throw away, and the next time the installer worked.

Thanks again for your help!