National Instruments Dependencies in LabWindows/CVI Windows Installers
Hard and Soft Dependencies
When you create an installer in LabWindows/CVI you select National Instruments components you want included in the installer. A component you select might have a hard dependency or a soft dependency to another component. If you select a component that has a hard dependency, the hard dependency component is included in the installer as well. If you select a component that has a soft dependency, the soft dependency component is included in the installer by default but you can choose to omit the soft dependency component. You might choose to omit a soft dependency if you want to limit the size of an installer. However, if you omit any soft dependency, you must consider the following issues:
- Omitting the soft dependency can affect the behavior of installed National Instruments products that rely on the dependency. Ensure the soft dependency is not a dependency of another National Instruments product used on the target machine.
- Updating the application may require a soft dependency you previously omitted from a deployment. You must update the installer to include the soft dependency prior to redeploying.
LabWindows/CVI also adds .msi files for NI components included in the application. These .msi files come from the NI installers for those components. LabWindows/CVI uses a dependency mechanism to automatically, and silently, include all dependencies of included NI components. If you include any NI drivers in the distribution, you may see other support components automatically bundled into the built installer. When you build the installer, LabWindows/CVI prompts you to provide source distributions for the selected drivers and components, unless the source is cached locally on the build computer. If you do not have the original source distributions for which you are prompted or would like to use a different distribution as the source, you must change the source distribution.
The drivers and components for NI products that you include in the installer contain only those features that are installed on the computer on which you build the installer. For example, if you have only 10 of a possible 20 features of an NI product installed on the build computer and then select to include the full version of that product in the installer, the installer might include only the 10 features installed on the build computer, not all 20 features available for that product.
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Caution It is possible that running an installer you create in LabWindows/CVI could uninstall certain features of NI products without reinstalling updated versions of those features. This behavior depends on the features installed on the build computer and those installed on the target computer. If the installation upgrades an NI product on the target computer, it may remove features of that product that were present on the target computer but not present on the build computer. The installer displays information to the user that explains what features will be removed as part of the installation before uninstalling any products and gives the user the option to stop the installation. |