Trying to diagnose COM port issue in Win 7 LV '18

[Eric1977]

All,

I could use your help in identifying what might be going on with one of my applications. I am using LabVIEW 2018 SP1.

I've built a app that loops through the com ports and sends a command and looks for a valid response. The code works on my dev computer running Windows 10 and any computer that I install this on with the Windows 10 operating system.

When I try to go to install the same program in a PC with the Windows 7 environment, I continue to get the dreaded "insufficient location information or the device is not present" message. I thought VISA might not be installed so I looked at the version that came with my download package and it is using the NI-VISA 15.0 Runtime which, looking at the website, should be compatible with Windows 7.

I am at a loss here. Anyone have any ideas on what to look for? I'll get a zip file of the VIs together to send here in a separate post.

[Eric1977]

The main VI to ope is KeyboardWedge.vi

[monmouth]

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@Eric1977 wrote:

I could use your help in identifying what might be going on with one of my applications. I am using

When I try to go to install the same program in a PC with the Windows 7 environment, I continue to get the dreaded "insufficient location information or the device is not present" message.

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install ?

[Bob_Schor]

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@Eric1977 wrote:

When I try to go to install the same program in a PC with the Windows 7 environment, I continue to get the dreaded "insufficient location information or the device is not present" message.

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There are at least three ways to "install" a LabVIEW program on a Target PC:

1. LabVIEW Development System is on the Target.  Copy VIs (and install necessary libraries) on Target, open LabVIEW, and run (or Build Executable).
2. No NI software is installed on Target.  Build Executable on Host, install appropriate Run Time Engine on Target, copy Executable Files to Target and run.  The RTE needs to be appropriate for Target -- not sure what happens if Host and Target differ in details (Windows 7 vs Windows 10, 32-bit vs 64-bit).
3. No NI Software is installed on Target.  Build an Installer on Host, specified (as required) for the Target Environment.  [Note I don't have a lot of experience with Installers, but believe I've done this successfully once or twice, not sure if between similar or different environments ...].

Of these methods, the "easiest" (and one least likely to cause "trouble") is #1, but this may not be feasible.

Bob Schor

[billko]

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@Bob_Schor wrote:

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@Eric1977 wrote:

When I try to go to install the same program in a PC with the Windows 7 environment, I continue to get the dreaded "insufficient location information or the device is not present" message.

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There are at least three ways to "install" a LabVIEW program on a Target PC:

1. LabVIEW Development System is on the Target.  Copy VIs (and install necessary libraries) on Target, open LabVIEW, and run (or Build Executable).
2. No NI software is installed on Target.  Build Executable on Host, install appropriate Run Time Engine on Target, copy Executable Files to Target and run.  The RTE needs to be appropriate for Target -- not sure what happens if Host and Target differ in details (Windows 7 vs Windows 10, 32-bit vs 64-bit).
3. No NI Software is installed on Target.  Build an Installer on Host, specified (as required) for the Target Environment.  [Note I don't have a lot of experience with Installers, but believe I've done this successfully once or twice, not sure if between similar or different environments ...].

Of these methods, the "easiest" (and one least likely to cause "trouble") is #1, but this may not be feasible.

Bob Schor

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I think #3 is easiest, provided you have all the media available for anything you need to add.  If they were installed from a folder and the folder was deleted, it will be decidedly more difficult; if you installed from CD/DVD and misplaced them, it will likewise be more difficult.

[Eric1977]

How I've usually done it in the past is just built an installer. For this, I just went into the properties of the installer, click on LV Runtime 2018 and the NI-VISA Runtime 15.0 (since that is the only VISA runtime available), and build it.

Like I said, it works for any Win 10 systems, but when you try the same installer and program on Win 7, I get the insufficient location message.

[Bob_Schor]

I don't recall (since it's been several years) whether Installers ask about the Target OS.  I could well imagine that there might be subtle differences between the format of Executables and DLLs between Windows 7 and Windows 10, so perhaps you need to be running LabVIEW on a Windows 7 machine in order to build an installer for Windows 7.

My advice (if you have support from NI) is to go to Support.ni.com and ask for help -- the AEs are quite helpful!

Bob Schor

[datatechNDT]

"Insufficient location information or the device or resource is not present in the system" is usually a Visa Error, which occurs 90% because of improper selection of Visa resource or device. Make sure that your VI selects the correct device when you run it on the Windows 7 machine. Sometimes you might have other devices (some of them can be internal hardware) that respond with bits over the buffer, therefore looking for any response over the buffer might not be sufficient. What I would suggest to start with is introduce a display that shows the device selected and make sure that the selection corresponds to the actual device connected.

Hope this helps...

[nestorl]

Hi Eric,

LabVIEW Executables are platform-dependent and are not guaranteed to be supported on different operating systems or on different versions of the same operating system than the one they were built on. You can read more about this here. 

If you are able to install LabVIEW and the Application Builder on your Windows 7 target (or any Windows 7 computer), I would port the VIs over to that computer and rebuild the executable for Windows 7.

Best of luck,

[datatechNDT]

The second time I had this issue was when my device settings were improper or the actual device drivers were not working. If its a MAX device, check if NI MAX is still able to communicate with the device, if its not a NI MAX device, check your drivers in the device manager. 

I know its a fairly obvious debugging method and probably you`ve already done that, but I decided to mention it anyway because the error that you are getting is usually nothing to do with LabVIEW or VISA itself.