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LabVIEW provides access to other Windows applications using .NET or ActiveX technologies.

.NET refers to Microsoft's .NET technology. The .NET framework is the programming basis of the .NET environment you use to build, deploy, and run Web-based applications, smart client applications, and XML Web services. You must install the .NET framework. Refer to the MSDN Web site for more information about .NET and installing the framework.

Note  Creating and communicating with .NET objects requires the .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 or later. National Instruments strongly recommends that you always put VIs that use .NET objects in a LabVIEW project and not leave them as stand-alone VIs.

ActiveX refers to Microsoft's ActiveX technology and OLE technology. With ActiveX Automation, a Windows application, such as LabVIEW, provides a public set of objects, commands, and functions that other Windows applications can access. Refer to the Microsoft Developer's Network documentation, Inside OLE, by Kraig Brockschmidt, second edition, and Essential COM, by Don Box, for more information about ActiveX.

Refer to ActiveX and LabVIEW at ni.com for more information about using ActiveX with LabVIEW.