Thank you for using NI-DCPower. This file contains important information about NI-DCPower and is organized into the following sections:
Installed Software, Documentation, and Examples
NI Software Support for Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003
Product Security and Critical Updates
Uninstalling/Modifying NI-DCPower
Automating the Installation of NI Products
Using NI Software with Microsoft Windows 10.
Using NI Software with Microsoft Windows 8.1.
NI-DCPower 16.0 includes the following new features:
NI-DCPower 15.2 includes the following new features:
NI-DCPower 15.1 includes the following new features:
NI-DCPower 15.0 includes the following new features:
NI-DCPower 14.1 includes the following new features:
NI-DCPower 14.0 includes the following new features:
NI-DCPower 1.9 includes the following new features:
NI-DCPower 1.8.5 includes the following new features:
NI-DCPower 1.8 includes the following new features:
NI-DCPower 15.2 and later supports the following power supply and source-measure units (SMUs):
Note MXI Express and MXI-4 are supported on Windows 10/8.1/8.0/7/Vista/XP, but MXI-3 is supported on only Windows XP.
Device-specific information about these modules is included in the NI DC Power Supplies and SMUs Help.
NI-DCPower 16.0 supports the following operating systems:
Note NI-DCPower 16.0 and later does not support Windows Server non-R2 editions.
NI recommends that you have the most recent service pack for your operating system installed. Windows Vista/XP users must use NI-DCPower 15.2 or earlier.
NI-DCPower 16.0 and later supports the following real-time operating environments:
Note: You should install ADEs, such as NI LabVIEW, NI LabWindows/CVI or Microsoft Visual Studio®, before installing NI-DCPower. To add support for ADEs installed after installing NI-DCPower, modify your NI-DCPower installation or launch the NI-DCPower installer again.
Note $(IVIROOTDIR64) 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:
- (32-bit) Program Files\IVI\
- (64-bit) Program Files (x86)\IVI\
Note $(IVIROOTDIR64) is configured as an environment variable on the target system.
| Item | Installed Location |
|---|---|
| NI-DCPower | <IVIROOTDIR32>\Drivers\niDCPower |
| NI-DCPower Function Panel | <IVIROOTDIR32>\Drivers\niDCPower\niDCPower.fp |
| NI-DCPower Examples | <NIDocDir>\niDCPower\Examples |
| NI-DCPower Header files | <IVIROOTDIR32>\Include |
| NI-DCPower Import Library files (32-bit) | <IVIROOTDIR32>\Lib |
| NI-DCPower Import Library files (64-bit) | <IVIROOTDIR32>\Lib_x64 |
| NI-DCPower DLL (32-bit) | <IVIROOTDIR32>\Bin |
| Item | Installed Location |
|---|---|
| NI-DCPower Header files | <IVIROOTDIR64>\Include |
| NI-DCPower Import Library files (64-bit) | <IVIROOTDIR64>\Lib_x64 |
| NI-DCPower DLL (64-bit) | <IVIROOTDIR64>\Bin |
Select Start»All Programs»National Instruments»NI-DCPower»NI-DCPower Soft Front Panel to launch the NI-DCPower Soft Front Panel.
Documentation is available at Start»All Programs»National Instruments»NI-DCPower»Documentation. The documentation set is composed of the following documents:
| Document | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|
| NI DC Power Supplies and SMUs Help | HTML/Windows Help | Contains primary help content for NI-DCPower products. The help is an HTML version of a traditional user manual that includes the following information:
|
| Getting Started Guide for your device or NI DC Power Supplies and SMUs Getting Started Guide (if your device does not have its own getting started guide) | Printed and PDF | Contains software and hardware installation, MAX configuration, signal connection, and troubleshooting information for your device. |
| Specifications for your device | Printed and PDF | Lists technical specifications for your device. |
| Calibration Procedures for your device | Contains calibration instructions for your device. | |
| NI-DCPower Readme | HTML (this document) | Contains information about supported hardware and operating systems, new features, fixed issues, and legal notices. |
For the most recent revisions of documentation and for newly released documentation, visit ni.com/manuals.
Note To view the specifications, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. You can install the viewer from www.adobe.com/reader.
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-DCPower palette VIs are available from the Functions»Measurement I/O»NI–DCPower palette.
NI–DCPower functions are available in LabWindows/CVI from the Instrument menu. To load the NI–DCPower function panel (.fp), select Instrument»Load, and navigate to IVI\Drivers\niDCPower\niDCPower.fp.
In LabVIEW, you can use the NI Example Finder to search or browse examples. NI–DCPower 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–DCPower 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–DCPower examples for LabVIEW and LabWindows/CVI at Start»All Programs»National Instruments»NI-DCPower»Examples .
Examples also are available online that demonstrate NI-DCPower functionality. Refer to ni.com/examples for these examples and for more information.
With this release, NI-DCPower 16.0 drops support for Microsoft Windows 7 RTM (with no service pack), Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. NI-DCPower 16.0 and later will not install or run on an unsupported OS. You cannot deploy or distribute applications that use NI-DCPower 16.0 to an unsupported OS. Additionally, after installing NI-DCPower 16.0, you cannot use any installers built on this computer with any version of LabVIEW, LabWindows™/CVI™, NI TestStand™, or Measurement Studio on an unsupported OS.
For more information about the changes to our OS support for 2016, refer to KB 79UC78LS, Why Does my LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, Measurement Studio, or TestStand Built Installer Fail on Windows XP/Vista and Server 2003?.
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-DCPower 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-DCPower 15.0 is the version released with LabVIEW 2015. The last version released under the old numbering scheme is NI-DCPower 1.9. The first version released under the new numbering scheme is NI-DCPower 14.0.
For Windows 7, complete the following steps:
For Windows 10/8.1/8.0, complete the following steps:
As part of the NI-DCPower 16.0 installation, the following software is installed. To completely remove the NI-DCPower 16.0 installation from your system, you must also remove all of the following products.
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.
*Starting with driver version 15.0, NI-DCPower installation includes NI-DAQmx Runtime and Configuration support but not NI-DAQmx LabVIEW ADE support. To install NI-DAQmx LabVIEW ADE support, install the full version of NI-DAQmx from ni.com/downloads.
You can access the software and documentation known issues list online. Refer to the NI-DCPower 16.0 Known Issues at ni.com/info and enter the Info Code exeevt for an up-to-date list of known issues in NI-DCPower 16.0.
The following items are changes in NI-DCPower 15.2 from NI-DCPower 15.1.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| Added support for monitoring SFP Debug Driver Sessions when sequencing. |
The following items are changes in NI-DCPower 14.1.2 from NI-DCPower 14.1.1.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 519695 | Fixed an issue in which NI-DCPower Self Calibrate could cause a voltage and current measurement offset on the NI PXIe-4138/4139. |
The following items are changes in NI-DCPower 14.1.1 from NI-DCPower 14.1.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 501023 | A hardware error in an NI-DCPower device no longer causes other devices in the system to fail to initialize properly. |
The following items are changes in NI-DCPower 14.1 from NI-DCPower 1.9.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 450955 | Running short sequences (three or fewer steps) or quickly aborting a sequence no longer occasionally returns an error. |
| 405305 | Fixed an issue with the NI PXIe-414x in which calling the niDCPower Configure Output Enabled VI after outputting a sequence of currents returned an error if you set nondefault current ranges. You can now set nondefault current ranges under these circumstances. |
The following items are changes in NI-DCPower 1.9 from NI-DCPower 1.8.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 404741 | Under certain configurations, the NI PXIe-4154 could inadvertently toggle from remote sense to local sense, then back to remote sense at NIDCPower Initiate, forcing the user to add additional settling time before taking a measurement. This has been resolved. |
The following items are changes in NI-DCPower 1.8 from NI-DCPower 1.7.5.
| ID | Fixed Issue |
|---|---|
| 286821 | Fixed an issue in which you must run LabWindows/CVI with elevated privileges to successfully launch the NI-DCPower Simultaneous Update example from LabWindows/CVI. NI has renamed this example to NI-DCPower Simultaneous Operation, and you no longer need to run LabWindows/CVI with elevated privileges to launch this example. |
| 371368 | Fixed an issue in which temperature changes degraded the output accuracy on the NI PXI-4132. You can now self-calibrate the NI PXI-4132 to maintain output accuracy. |
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 8.1, 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. For more information about NI support for Windows 8.1, visit ni.com/windows8.
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End-User License Agreements and Third-Party Legal Notices
You can find end-user license agreements (EULAs) and third-party legal notices in the following locations after installation:
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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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