Upgrade and Compatibility Issues

When you upgrade to LabVIEW 2018, refer to the upgrade and compatibility issues for the version of LabVIEW from which you are upgrading:

• LabVIEW 2013 or Earlier
• LabVIEW 2014
• LabVIEW 2015
• LabVIEW 2016
• LabVIEW 2017

Refer to the readme.html file in the labview directory for information about known issues in the new version of LabVIEW, additional compatibility issues, and information about late-addition features in LabVIEW 2018.

Upgrading from LabVIEW 2013 or Earlier

Refer to the NI website at ni.com to access upgrade and compatibility issues you might encounter when upgrading to LabVIEW 2018 from LabVIEW 2013 or earlier. Also refer to all sections of this topic for information about other upgrade issues you might encounter.

Upgrading from LabVIEW 2014

You might encounter the following compatibility issues when you upgrade to LabVIEW 2018 from LabVIEW 2014. Refer to the Upgrading from LabVIEW 2015, Upgrading from LabVIEW 2016, and Upgrading from LabVIEW 2017 sections of this topic for information about other upgrade issues you might encounter.

Identifying Buffer Allocations in LabVIEW Applications

LabVIEW 2014 Service Pack 1 and later include the Profile Buffer Allocations window to identify and analyze buffer allocations in a LabVIEW application. Select Tools»Profile»Profile Buffer Allocations to display this window.

Hyperlinks in Free Labels

LabVIEW 2015 and later detect URLs in free labels and converts them to hyperlinks underlined in blue text. LabVIEW does not automatically convert URLs in free labels to hyperlinks when you upgrade from LabVIEW 2014 or earlier. To enable hyperlinks in front panel labels, right-click the free label and select Enable Hyperlinks in the shortcut menu. You cannot disable hyperlinks in block diagram labels.

Deprecated VIs, Functions, and Nodes

LabVIEW 2015 and later do not support the following VIs, functions, and nodes.

• Read From Spreadsheet File—Use the Read Delimited Spreadsheet VI instead.
• Write To Spreadsheet File—Use the Write Delimited Spreadsheet VI instead.

Upgrading from LabVIEW 2015

You might encounter the following compatibility issues when you upgrade to LabVIEW 2018 from LabVIEW 2015. Refer to the Upgrading from LabVIEW 2016 and Upgrading from LabVIEW 2017 sections of this topic for information about other upgrade issues you might encounter.

In LabVIEW 2016 and later, the Quick Drop Configuration dialog box contains a default list of shortcuts for front panel and block diagram objects. Shortcuts you created in LabVIEW 2015 or earlier do not automatically migrate to the list of shortcuts in LabVIEW 2016 and later.

Upgrading from LabVIEW 2016

You might encounter the following compatibility issue when you upgrade to LabVIEW 2018 from LabVIEW 2016. Refer to the Upgrading from LabVIEW 2017 section of this topic for information about other upgrade issues you might encounter.

Behavior Change in the Actor Framework VIs

In LabVIEW 2016 and earlier, when a nested actor fails to launch because of an error in the Pre-Launch Init method, the nested actor returns an error and sends a Last Ack message that contains the error to its caller actor. In LabVIEW 2017, the nested actor returns an error without sending a Last Ack message to its caller actor.

Upgrading from LabVIEW 2017

You might encounter the following compatibility issue when you upgrade to LabVIEW 2018 from LabVIEW 2017.

Backward Compatibility of the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine

LabVIEW 2017 and later supports backward compatibility for the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine. You can load and run binaries and VIs built in older versions of LabVIEW without mass recompiling VIs or rebuilding binaries in the current version of LabVIEW. For example, versions of LabVIEW later than 2017 can load binaries and VIs built with LabVIEW 2017 without recompiling. This improvement applies to stand-alone applications (EXEs), shared libraries (DLLs), and packed project libraries.

To enable binaries to be backward compatible, place a checkmark in the following checkbox on the Advanced page of the specific dialog box depending on your build specification:

Build Specification	Dialog Box	Checkbox
Stand-alone application (EXE)	Application Properties	Allow future versions of the LabVIEW Runtime to run this application
Packed project library	Packed Library Properties	Allow future versions of LabVIEW to load this packed library
Shared library (DLL)	Shared Library Properties	Allow future versions of LabVIEW to load this shared library

LabVIEW enables these options by default for build specifications you create in LabVIEW 2017 and later. You can disable these options to bind a build specification to a specific version of LabVIEW. Disabling these options prevents any changes to the performance profiles and helps you avoid unexpected problems resulting from compiler upgrades. For real-time applications, these options do not appear in the dialog boxes but the functionality is enabled by default.

Behavior Changes to the Report Generation VIs

In LabVIEW 2018, the Report Generation VIs no longer support generating reports in the Standard Report format. You can generate reports in HTML, Word, or Excel formats only. Because of the behavior change, the following VIs are deprecated:

• Easy Print VI Panel or Documentation—This VI is deprecated. Use the Print VI Panel or Documentation VI instead.
• Easy Text Report—This VI is deprecated. Use the Create Easy Text Report VI instead.
• Get Report Type—This VI is deprecated. Use the Report Type VI instead.
• New Report—This VI is deprecated. Use the Create Report VI instead.
• Set Report Tab Width—This VI is deprecated.

Deprecated VIs, Functions, and Nodes

LabVIEW 2018 and later do not support the Number To Enum VI. Use the Coerce To Type function instead.