November 2015
Thank you for using NI-RFSA. This file contains important information about NI-RFSA and is organized into the following sections:
Installed Software, Documentation, and Examples
Product Security and Critical Updates
Uninstalling/Modifying NI RF Signal Analyzers Software
Automating the Installation of NI Products
Using NI Software with Microsoft Windows 10
Using NI Software with Microsoft Windows 8.1
NI Software Support for Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003
NI-RFSA 15.0.2 includes the following new features:
NI-RFSA 15.0 includes the following new features:
NI-RFSA 14.5 adds support for LabVIEW 2014 SP1 (32- and 64-bit)
NI-RFSA 14.1 includes the following new features:
NI-RFSA 14.0 adds support for LabVIEW 2014 (32- and 64-bit)
NI-RFSA 2.9 includes the following new features:
NI-RFSA 2.7.5 adds support for LabVIEW 2013 (32- and 64-bit)
NI-RFSA 2.7 adds support for the NI PXIe-5644R/5645R vector signal transceivers
The following NI RF signal analyzer hardware products are supported in Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit)/Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)/7 (32-bit and 64-bit)/Vista (32-bit and 64-bit)/Windows XP1/Server 2003 (32-bit)/Server 2008 (64-bit)/Server 2012 (64-bit).
| Hardware Product | NI-RFSA | NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel |
|---|---|---|
| NI 5600 | √ | |
| NI 5601 | √ | |
| NI 5603 | √ | |
| NI 5605 | √ | |
| NI 5606 | √ | |
| NI 5661 | √ | √ |
| NI 5663/5663E | √ | √ |
| NI 5665 | √ | √ |
| NI 5667 | √ | √ |
| NI 5668R | √ | √ |
| NI 5644R | √ | √ |
| NI 5645R | √ | √ |
| NI 5646R | √ | √ |
1 MXI Express and MXI-4 are supported on Windows 10/8.1/7/Vista/XP, but MXI-3 is supported on only Windows XP.
Device-specific information about these modules is included in the NI RF Vector Signal Analyzers Help.
NI-RFSA 15.0.2 and NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel 15.0 support the following operating systems:
Note NI-RFSA 15.0.2 and NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel 15.0 do not support Windows Server non-R2 editions.
NI recommends that you have the most recent service pack for your operating system installed.
NI-RFSA 15.0.2 supports the following real-time operating environments:
Note When using NI-RFSA, the NI 5644R/5645R/5646R/5668R device does not support the LabVIEW Real-Time Module or LabWindows/CVI Real-Time Module.
*Depending on the amount of data acquired and/or processed, a larger amount of memory may be required.
Note: Guest accounts are not supported under any OS.
*Depending on the amount of data acquired and/or processed, a larger amount of memory may be required.
Note You should install ADEs, such as NI LabVIEW, NI LabWindows/CVI or Microsoft Visual Studio®, before installing NI-RFSA. To add support for ADEs installed after installing NI-RFSA, modify your NI-RFSA installation or launch the NI-RFSA installer again.
Note The NI Spectral Measurements Toolkit must be installed for proper operation of NI RF vector signal analyzers. Install the Spectral Measurements Toolkit after installing NI-RFSA. Refer to the getting started guide for your device for more information about software and hardware installation.
Note MXI users must install the software included with the MXI hardware.
Note When using NI-RFSA, the NI 5644R/5645R/5646R/5668R device does not support LabVIEW Real-Time Module or LabWindows/CVI Real-Time Module.
| Note | $(IVIROOTDIR32) is configured as an environment variable on the target system. |
If you upgraded an installation of IVI, your files may be located in the following location:
|
| Note | $(IVIROOTDIR64) is configured as an environment variable on the target system. |
| Files | Installed Location on Windows 10/8.1/7/Vista/XP |
|---|---|
| NI-RFSA | <IVIROOTDIR32>\Drivers\niRFSA |
| NI-RFSA Function Panel | <IVIROOTDIR32>\Drivers\niRFSA\niRFSA.fp |
| NI-RFSA Examples | <NIDocDir>\NI-RFSA\examples |
| NI-RFSA Header file | <IVIROOTDIR32>\Include |
| NI-RFSA Import Library files | <IVIROOTDIR32>\lib |
| NI-RFSA DLL (32-bit) | <IVIROOTDIR32>\Bin |
| TDM Excel Add-In for Microsoft Excel VI | <LabVIEW>\vi.lib\Utility\tdmsutil.lib |
| Item | Installed Location on Windows 10 (64-bit)/8.1 (64-bit)/7 (64-bit)/Vista (64-bit) |
|---|---|
| NI-RFSA Function Panel | <IVIROOTDIR64>\Drivers\niRFSA\niRFSA.fp |
| NI-RFSA Header files | <IVIROOTDIR64>\Include |
| NI-RFSA Import Library files (64-bit) | <IVIROOTDIR64>\Lib_x64 |
| NI-RFSA DLL (64-bit) | <IVIROOTDIR64>\Bin |
Select Start»All Programs»National Instruments»NI-RFSA»NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel to launch the NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel.
Documentation for NI-RFSA is located at Start»All Programs»National Instruments»NI-RFSA»NI-RFSA Documentation. The documentation set is composed of the following documents.
| Document | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|
| NI RF Vector Signal Analyzers Help | HTML/Windows Help | Contains primary help content for NI RF signal analyzer products. The help is an HTML version of a traditional user manual that includes the following information:
|
| Getting Started Guide for your device | Printed and PDF | Contains software and hardware installation, MAX configuration, signal connection, and troubleshooting information for your device. |
| Specifications for your device | Lists technical specifications for your device. | |
| Calibration Procedures for your device | Contains calibration instructions for your device. | |
| NI RF Signal Analyzers Readme | HTML (this document) | Contains information about supported hardware and operating systems, new features, fixed issues, and legal notices. |
| Introduction to NI-RFSA | HTML | Contains information about driver documentation, examples, connecting to your instrument, configuring instrument settings, and known issues. |
| NI-RFSA IVI Compliance Document | TXT | Contains information about IVI compliance. |
For the most recent revisions of documentation and for newly released documentation, visit ni.com/manuals.
To use the .NET API, you must install the the .NET class libraries or the .NET Wrapper in addition to the NI device driver. For information about versions of the .NET Framework and the drivers each supports, as well as the download location of the installer files, refer to the National Instruments .NET Driver Support document at ni.com/info and enter Info Code NETAPIdriversupport.
Note To view PDFs, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. You can install the viewer from www.adobe.com/acrobat.
To access the LabVIEW sample projects and templates from the New Project dialog, select Sample Projects in the left pane and navigate to the project that best matches your application requirements.
NI–RFSA palette VIs are available from the Functions»Measurement I/O»NI–RFSA palette.
NI–RFSA functions are available in LabWindows/CVI from the Instrument menu. To load the NI–RFSA function panel (.fp), select Instrument»Load, and navigate to IVI\Drivers\niRFSA\niRFSA.fp.
In LabVIEW, you can use the NI Example Finder to search or browse examples. NI–RFSA examples are classified by keyword, so you can search for a particular device or measurement function. In LabVIEW, select Help»Find Examples to launch the NI Example Finder. The NI Example Finder offers two ways to access all installed LabVIEW example VIs (including NI–RFSA and Modulation Toolkit examples) and their descriptions:
The NI Example Finder is also available in LabWindows/CVI by selecting Help»Find Examples.
You can also access all the installed NI–RFSA examples for LabVIEW and LabWindows/CVI at Start»All Programs»National Instruments»NI–RFSA»NI-RFSA Examples.
Examples also are available online that demonstrate integrating NI RF signal analyzers with NI RF signal generators and NI toolkit software, including the Modulation Toolkit. Refer to ni.com/examples for these examples and for more information.
Visit ni.com/security to view and subscribe to receive security notifications about National Instruments products. Visit ni.com/critical-updates for information about critical updates from National Instruments.
NI-RFSA versions are now aligned with the versions of major NI application software products. This alignment gives you information about the year the driver was released and the most recent software version the driver was designed to work with. Driver versions now start with a two-digit year indicator: <ProductName><Year-BasedVersion>. For example, NI-RFSA 14.0 is the version released with LabVIEW 2014. The last version released under the old numbering scheme was NI-RFSA 2.9.1. The first version released under the new numbering scheme was NI-RFSA 14.0.
For Windows XP, complete the following steps:
For Windows 7/Vista, complete the following steps:
For Windows 8.1, complete the following steps:
For Windows 10, complete the following steps:
As part of the NI-RFSA 15.0.2 installation, the following software is installed. To completely remove the NI-RFSA 15.0.2 installation from your system, you must also remove all of the following packages:
Caution Several of the software packages listed above are shared with other NI software packages. If you attempt to remove a piece of software that something else is dependent on, a message launches to warn you about the software dependencies. You can choose to either uninstall all of the software or to leave the shared software installed. If you choose to uninstall the shared software, some of your other NI software may no longer function correctly.
Note Do not attempt to uninstall by manually deleting files.
You can access the software and documentation known issues list online. Refer to the following locations at ni.com for an up-to-date list of known issues in NI-RFSA 15.0.2 and the NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel.
The following items are the IDs and titles of a subset of issues fixed between NI–RFSG instrument driver revisions. This table is not an exhaustive list of issues fixed in the current version of NI–RFSG.
The following items are changes from NI-RFSA 14.1 to NI-RFSA 14.5.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 509550 | Fixed an issue in which spurs were observed every 385 kHz for low reference level measurements. |
| 458168 | Fixed an issue in which read power spectrum returned incorrect data when called continuously. |
| 489736 | Fixed an issue in which the system displayed an ambiguous error when setting the IQ Power Edge Reference Trigger in a multispan acquisition. |
| 501291 | Fixed an issue in which the niRFSA_GetRelayOperationsCount function was not supported by NI 5606/5668R devices. |
| 505948 | Fixed an issue in which an unexpected data overflow error occurred with sample rates greater than 500 MS/s on NI 5606/5668R devices. |
The following items are changes from NI-RFSA 14.0 to NI-RFSA 14.1.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 492490 | Fixed an issue in which the proper LabVIEW Run-Time Engine was not installed. |
The following items are changes from NI-RFSA 2.9.1 to NI-RFSA 14.0.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 465141 | Fixed an issue in which fetch performance on VST devices degrades. |
The following items are changes from NI-RFSA 2.9 to NI-RFSA 2.9.1.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 459297 | Fixed an issue in which the IQ IN Single Ended vertical range was incorrectly limited to 1 Vpk-pk. |
The following items are changes from NI-RFSA 2.7 to NI-RFSA 2.9.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 401891 | Fixed an issue in which upgrading from a previous version of the driver left express VIs unusable. |
| 387728 | Fixed an issue in which the NI-P2P attributes test failed on some controller and OS combinations with the NI 5663E. |
| 375643 | Fixed an issue in which changing the Reference Trigger type from IQ power edge to None caused errors with the NI 5661. |
| 387196 | Fixed an issue in which a RIO device was not listed in the Device Resource name control for the niRFSA Initialize VI even though it was present on the system. |
The following items are changes from NI-RFSA 2.6 to NI-RFSA 2.7.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 394079 | Fixed an issue in which the NI 5601 revision E modules do not behave properly with NI-RFSA 2.6. |
| 384602 | Fixed an issue in which an error occurs for certain configurations when you set the span, resolution bandwidth, and number of spectral lines properties or attributes. |
| 383183 | Fixed an issue in which calling Initialize and Close in parallel on the same device can cause the OS to deadlock. |
There are no behavior changes in NI-RFSA SFP 15.0 from NI-RFSA SFP 14.1 other than the new features previously listed.
The following items are changes in NI-RFSA SFP 14.1 from NI-RFSA SFP 14.0
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 453860 | Fixed an issue in which the automatic VBW value in SFP Control (Local) mode was being incorrectly calculated. |
| 442518 | Fixed an issue in which clicking preset after closing a device session in SFP Control (Local) mode returned an error. |
| 486765 | Fixed an issue in which the NI-RFSA SFP Launcher example for NI TestStand did not automatically enable SFP session access. |
| 485420 | Fixed an issue in which certain SFP trigger coercion warnings were automatically cleared when entering SFP Control (Local) mode. |
There are no behavior changes in NI-RFSA SFP 14.0 from NI-RFSA SFP 2.9 other than the new features previously listed.
The following items are changes in NI-RFSA SFP 2.9 from NI RFSA SFP 2.6.1.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 379030 | Fixed an issue in which the displayed offset was incorrect for offsets 13 to 15 in adjacent channel power and spectrum emission mask measurements. |
| 379671 | Fixed an issue in which the digital Start Trigger was not cleared when switching to I/Q acquisition mode. |
| 387636 | Fixed an issue in which setting the transmit power trigger level below 0 dBm incorrectly caused an error stating that the trigger level was too high. |
| 375392 | Fixed an issue in which the SFP incorrectly waited for a trigger to occur after the trigger was coerced to free run. |
| 369876 | Fixed an issue in which the values in the measurement display were not updated when recalling a file saved in an error state. |
The following item is the change in NI-RFSA SFP 2.6.1 from NI RFSA SFP 2.6.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 387363 | Fixed an issue in which the reference level could not be set below 0 dBm when the IQ Power Edge Trigger is enabled. |
The following items are changes in NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel 2.6 from NI RFSA Soft Front Panel 2.5.5.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 346134 | Fixed an issue in which the user could not set the delta marker in CCDF to a trace different from the reference marker. |
| 346699 | Fixed an issue in Zero Span with a marker enabled in which the keypad could not change the marker position if the user changed the acquisition time. |
| 347833 | Fixed an issue in spectral emission mask measurement in which the SFP sometimes disabled the I/Q Power Edge softkey when it should not. |
| 349655 | Fixed an issue in spectral emission mask measurement in which RBW and step frequency could be set lower than the minimum limit. |
| 356088 | Fixed an issue in which there was a mismatch between the analyzed range and visual indication on the user interface when the user set the Delay for an I/Q power edge trigger to a non zero value. |
| 345649 | Fixed an issue in which the SFP did not display a warning when the user recalled a configuration with the RF Coupling softkey set to DC. |
| 345782 | Fixed an issue in spectral emission mask measurement in which the SFP did not coerce the integration bandwidth when the user set the span of the reference channel to a value less than the integration BW. |
| 330388 | Fixed an issue in which a Windows command prompt window opened while closing the SFP. |
You can automate the installation of most NI products using command-line arguments to suppress some or all of the installer user interface and dialog boxes. However, starting with the August 2012 releases (products using NI Installers version 3.1 or later), you may need to perform additional steps before or during a silent installation of NI software.
If the NI product you are installing uses Microsoft .NET 4.0, the .NET installer may run before any NI software installs and may require a reboot before the installation of NI software begins. To avoid a .NET reboot, install .NET 4.0 separately before you install NI software.
For more information about automating the installation of NI products, refer to the following KnowledgeBase articles:
Microsoft Windows 10 is the latest version of the Windows operating system and features significant changes compared to previous versions. Windows 10 introduces several new capabilities and also combines features from both Windows 7 and Windows 8. For more information about NI support for Windows 10, visit ni.com/windows10.
When you install National Instruments software on Microsoft Windows 8.x, you will notice a few additional tiles in the Apps view, including shortcuts to NI application software products such as NI LabVIEW, Measurement & Automation Explorer (NI MAX), and NI Launcher.
NI Launcher helps you find and launch installed NI products. It provides you with a method of finding NI products similar to the Start menu in previous versions of Microsoft Windows. To use NI Launcher, click the NI Launcher tile in the Apps view. NI Launcher launches the desktop and opens a menu containing a list of NI products. Click any NI product to launch it.
| Note NI MAX does not appear as a desktop shortcut when installed on Microsoft Windows 8.x. You can launch NI MAX either from the Apps view or from within NI Launcher. |
For convenience, you can pin your most-used NI applications, such as MAX, to either the Start screen or the Taskbar on the desktop, as necessary.
| Current Application | Icon Location | Pin to Action |
| Windows 8.x Desktop | Desktop Taskbar | Right-click application and select Pin to Taskbar |
| Windows 8.x Desktop | Start screen | Right-click application and select Pin to Start |
| Windows 8.x Start screen | Desktop Taskbar | Right-click application and select Pin to taskbar from the menu bar on the bottom of the screen |
If you want to find a particular application or related files, such as documentation files, from the Start screen, you can access all installed files from the Apps view. To get to the Apps view, right-click anywhere on the Start screen and select All apps (Windows 8.0) or click the down arrow on the bottom left of the screen (Windows 8.1).
For more information about NI support for Windows 8.x, visit ni.com/windows8.
National Instruments NI RF Signal Analyzers will drop support for Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 as of July 1, 2016. Versions of NI-RFSA and NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel that ship after July 1, 2016 will not install or run on Windows Vista, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003. For detailed information about NI application software product life cycles, visit ni.com/info and enter one of the following Info Codes.
| Product | Info Code |
| NI LabVIEW | lifecycle |
| NI LabWindows™/CVI™ | cvi_lifecycle |
| NI Measurement Studio | mstudiolifecycle |
| NI TestStand | tslcp |
| NI DIAdem | ddlcp |
| NI SignalExpress | selcp |
| NI VeriStand | nivslifecycle |
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You can find end-user license agreements (EULAs) and third-party legal notices in the following locations after installation:
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Patents
For patents covering the National Instruments products/technology, refer to the appropriate location: Help»Patents in your software, the patents.txt file on your media, or the National Instruments Patent Notice at ni.com/patents.
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