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If you develop an application using a specific version of .NET, that application requires users to install the same or later version of .NET. If you upgrade the version of .NET on the development computer, LabVIEW automatically loads the upgraded version of the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR). If you distribute the application after developing in this upgraded version of .NET, users also must upgrade their versions of .NET to execute the application. For example, if you install .NET 2.0 on a computer, applications you develop on that computer will not execute on computers that have only .NET 1.1 installed.

Instead of requiring users to upgrade, you can force LabVIEW to load a specific version of the .NET CLR. You then can use LabVIEW to develop applications that require the previous version of .NET, and users do not have to upgrade.

To force LabVIEW to load a specific version of the .NET CLR, open a text editor and create a configuration file with the following syntax:

<configuration>
<startup>
<requiredRuntime version="vXXXX"/>
</startup>
</configuration>

where XXXX is the version number of the .NET CLR you want LabVIEW to load. For example, to force LabVIEW to load the .NET 1.1 CLR, enter 1.1.4322.

Save this configuration file as labview.exe.config in the labview\ directory. The next time you launch LabVIEW, you can develop .NET applications using the .NET CLR from the version you specified.

The .NET CLR uses configuration settings to determine the assembly version to load. These configuration settings might override your request for a specific assembly version. For example, the system administrator can configure your computer to load version 1.0.0.1 instead of 1.0.0.0. If you then try to load version 1.0.0.0, the .NET CLR promotes the assembly version to 1.0.0.1. LabVIEW also notifies you of the promotion.