NI products not working after installation due to moved ni folders, licenses

[Christoph Ramseyer]

Hi,

I solved this problem, but would like to understand why it arised in
the first place. Problem description & solution (Harddisc errorfree,
pc system virusfree):

1. Installed TestStand, LabView from
NI Dev Suite, Standard Test Edition with LabView

2. Worked perfectly
(3. Installed 3rd Party non-NI related SW - probably unrelated to the
problem)
4. Installled almost al remaining sw from
NI Dev Suite, Standard Test Edition with LabView
5. No NI product would start ("... can't find license")
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
6. ~50% of the folders, including the license files were shifted from
the original location:

"C:\Program Files\National Instruments..."

to this weird location\path:

"C:\Program Files\National Instruments\National Instruments\National
Instruments\National Instruments\National Instruments\National
Instruments\National Instruments\National Instruments\National
Instruments\National Instruments"

e.g.

old:
"C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\License
Manager\Bin\nilmUtil.exe"

new:

"C:\Program Files\National Instruments\National Instruments\National
Instruments\National Instruments\National Instruments\National
Instruments\National Instruments\National Instruments\National
Instruments\National Instruments\Shared\License
Manager\Bin\nilmUtil.exe"

7. Copy back the files to the original location did not work (path too
long), I had to iteratively "windows explorer move" the folders back
to their original install location.

8. Everything works now, but where did the folder moving come from ?

[Andre Saller]

Unfortunately I have never heard of anything like this before here at
NI-Support. I didn´t find anything concerning this in the database,
too. I guess the Microsoft Installer we use to install our software
messed up the install-path in a strange way. Unfortunately I have no
explanation for this behaviour.

[Shannon R]

Christoph,

Like Andre said, we haven't seen this before. I was wondering if you
could give me some more information and we can look into this further.
In the steps that you outlined, did you happen to check between step 3
and step 4 if one of your NI products (LabVIEW or TestStand) ran
successfully? The 3rd party installer probably didn't have an effect
on the system, but it would be good to confirm that. Also, if you
checked to see if the paths had changed after installing each
different product, that might help us narrow the problem down to one
particular product.

Also, do you know the month and year of your edition of Developer
Suite? We issue new Developer Suite editions 4 times a year. If you
know the version, that will narrow down the problem considerably.

Lastly, would it be possible to get a list of all the NI Software
involved in your installation? You mention TestStand and LabVIEW
specifically, but I'm curious what products are included in "all
remaining software".

Sorry you experienced this. Hopefully we can figure out what happened
for future installations.

Thanks!
Shannon R
Product Support Engineer