If I build a Labview application and installer with Labview 8.5 running on Windows XP 32-bit OS, and the installer includes the Run-Time Engine, will it install and run correctly on a Windows Vista 64-bit machine? Thanks.

Your program could work on a 64-bit machine, but there are a lot of things to consider. Take a look at this article. Basically, Microsoft implements a 32-bit emulation layer that enables 32-bit programs to run as though on a 32-bit version of Windows by translating instructions passing in and out of the applications into 64-bit instructions. These programs will not take advantage of the added memory addressing capabilities of a 64-bit OS.

Other things that could cause problems are your hardware drivers and any call to system dlls. System32.dll or User32.dll are now Sytem64 and User64. I assume the emulation layer handles this and these calls will still work, but I don't have enough experience with it to say for sure.

Toby

I have the same question. The only NI driver my application installs is NI-VISA runtime for accessing a USB UART bridge and I am building on XP 32-bit.

Would my app install and run on Vista 64-bit?

Would it run better on Vista 64-bit if I built it using a Vista 64-bit machine?

Thanks

Just thought I'd add a couple of comments... Some of it is new info, some is just a different way of saying what TobyD said...

An application built with LabVIEW 8.5 will be a 32-bit executable. It will run in the 8.5 run-time engine (also 32-bit) regardless of the bitness of Windows (runs in the WoW layer on Vista x64). The same installer should get built regardless of whether the machine building it is running 32-bit or 64-bit Vista, and it will install on either one as well.

Saying that a 32-bit application will not be able to take advantage of the larger amounts of memory available to a 64-bit OS is not entirely true. On a 32-bit OS, LabVIEW 8.5 can access only up to 3 GB RAM, and even then, only if you have the /3GB boot option. On Vista x64, LabVIEW 8.5 (and therefore a LabVIEW 8.5-built executable) can access up to a full 4 GB RAM. However, as it is still a 32-bit application, it cannot go beyond this, which I believe was TobyD's point.

Also, contrary to what TobyD mentioned, USER32.DLL and KERNEL32.DLL have not changed name. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of these DLLs exist on Vista64, but they are BOTH still named USER32.DLL and KERNEL32.DLL. Further, as counter-intuitive as it might seem, the 64-bit versions of these live C:\WINDOWS\System32, and the 32-bit versions live in C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64. No, I didn't mix those up, maybe Microsoft did, but the product's released now, so oh well. At any rate, you shouldn't have to worry about this too much, as 32-bit applications know to look for these things in the 32-bit location, and 64-bit applications know to look for them in the 64-bit location. That's not to say that any application written on 32-bit Vista or XP will work on 64-bit Vista. The article TobyD referenced is good to make sure your application is both Vista and 64-bit ready. But as far as the NI components, you should be fine.

Finally, I had to look up the details on VISA support. It looks like VISA 4.1 was the first version to support 64-bit OSs. As long as you have VISA 4.1 or later installed on the machine where you're building the installer, it shouldn't matter whether the machine is running a 32-bit or 64-bit OS.

Hope this helps!
Jeff

This post has been edited by Jeff B: May 23 2008, 06:36 PM

Thanks Jeff,

I have a user on Vista 64-bit who is reporting that the installer for my app gives a "No software will be installed or removed" message, but I suspect that it might be because they have already installed it and don't realize it. (Yes, I've supported customers who have had that problem.)

Travis

Thanks for the added info Jeff! I'm sure this article will get a lot more hits as more and more people start making the switch to 64bit. Good Stuff