Measurement Studio Incompatibilities

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Measurement Studio 2012 for Visual Studio 2010 Help

Edition Date: August 2012

Part Number: 372636F-01

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This topic specifies incompatibilities in Measurement Studio with previous versions of Measurement Studio and otherwise supported features.

Note: For a list of obsoleted members and members that have been changed to sealed override or non-virtual, refer to the Modifications to Existing .NET API Members section.

Refer to the following sections for the version of Measurement Studio in which the incompatibility was introduced.

2012

• When converting data types, if DataConverter supports both the source and the target data types, then converting an empty array does not throw an exception. CanConvert returns true and Convert returns an empty array of the target data type. For example, DataConverter supports converting Double into DateTime, so CanConvert returns true and and Convert returns an empty array of DateTime.

  In previous versions of Measurement Studio, calling CanConvert returns false and Convert on an empty array would result in an exception.

• Setting Timing to the same value it already contains does not change the value of IsPrecisionTimingInitialized. In previous versions of Measurement Studio, when Timing was set to any valid value, IsPrecisionTimingInitialized would return false.
• The TDMS .NET library throws an InvalidOperationException when calling [P:NationalInstruments.Tdms.TdmsChannel.GetData`1] or [P:NationalInstruments.Tdms.TdmsChannel.AppendData`1] where TData is an unsupported data type. Previous versions of the TDMS .NET library threw an ArgumentException when calling [P:NationalInstruments.Tdms.TdmsChannel.GetData`1] or [P:NationalInstruments.Tdms.TdmsChannel.AppendData`1] where TData is an unsupported data type.

2010 SP1

• The NI Spy utility has been renamed NI I/O Trace. This will not affect existing projects; however, for Measurement Studio 2010 and earlier versions and versions of the NI Drivers DVD released before August 2011, the Measurement Studio menu contains a link to NI Spy. The Measurement Studio menu link has been changed to reflect the new name of the utility in Measurement Studio 2010 SP1. The NI I/O Trace menu item is available only if you have NI I/O Trace installed. Refer to the Measurement Studio Menu topic for further information.
• Measurement Studio integrated tools now update outdated Measurement Studio assembly references in a project only if that project targets the version of the .NET Framework that the Measurement Studio integrated tools support. Measurement Studio integrated tools prompt you to update outdated assembly references when you open a project with outdated references. Measurement Studio integrated tools update outdated assembly references without a prompt if you use the Update Measurement Studio Project References menu item. A Measurement Studio assembly reference is considered outdated if the installed version of Measurement Studio is newer than the version in the reference.

  In prior versions of Measurement Studio, Measurement Studio integrated tools updated Measurement Studio assembly references regardless of the version of the .NET Framework that the project targeted. For example, if you used Visual Studio 2010 to open a Visual Studio project with references to Measurement Studio assemblies built against .NET Framework 3.5, Measurement Studio integrated tools would prompt you to change your project to refer to the Measurement Studio assemblies built against .NET Framework 4. This behavior made it inconvenient to use newer versions of Visual Studio to develop projects that target older versions of the .NET Framework.

  In Measurement Studio 2010 SP1, Measurement Studio integrated tools update Measurement Studio assembly references only if the project targets the version of the .NET Framework that the integrated tools support. For example, if you use Visual Studio 2010 to open a Visual Studio project with references to Measurement Studio assemblies built against .NET Framework 3.5, Measurement Studio integrated tools will not attempt to update the assembly references. If you use Visual Studio 2010 to open a Visual Studio project with references to Measurement Studio assemblies built against .NET Framework 4, Measurement Studio integrated tools will attempt to update the assembly references.

  Complete the following steps if you want Measurement Studio integrated tools to update your Measurement Studio assembly references:

  1. Right-click your project and select Properties.
  2. Change the project target framework setting to the latest .NET Framework version for the Visual Studio version you are using.
  3. Select Measurement Studio»Update Measurement Studio Project References.
  4. Click OK to return to your project.

2010

• Measurement Studio no longer offers support for Visual Studio .NET 2003. For more information, refer to the Legacy Languages and Frameworks section of the Measurement Studio Release Notes.
• Measurement Studio no longer ships support for Visual Studio 6.0. For more information, refer to the Legacy Languages and Frameworks section of the Measurement Studio Release Notes.
• Measurement Studio is no longer compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000. The Measurement Studio installer enforces this requirement and does not allow you to complete your installation if you are installing Measurement Studio on a machine running the Windows 2000 operating system.
• The following drivers provide support for Visual Studio 2010: NI-DAQmx 9.2.3 and later, NI-VISA 5.0.3 and later, and NI-488.2 2.8.1 and later. The following drivers do not provide support for Visual Studio 2010: NI-IMAQ, NI-IMAQdx, MAX (Measurement & Automation Explorer), and NI-SCOPE. Refer to Measurement Studio 2010 Known Issues on ni.com/devzone for more information.
• You cannot use the Web Forms Designer to modify a Web application developed with Measurement Studio 2010 on the Web server that is hosting the application unless Measurement Studio 2010 is installed and activated on the Web server. In Measurement Studio 2009, you could use a run-time license on the Web server to modify a Web site using the Web Forms Designer. Modifying a Measurement Studio Web application created with any version of Measurement Studio on a Web server that does not have Measurement Studio installed and activated is disallowed by the NI License Agreement.
• If you plot an analog waveform or complex waveform on the waveform graph, change DefaultWaveformPlotOptions or DefaultComplexWaveformPlotOptions, and then append an analog or complex waveform, the DefaultWaveformPlotOptions or DefaultComplexWaveformPlotOptions changes you made no longer have any affect on the appended data. Instead the AnalogWaveformPlotOptions or ComplexWaveformPlotOptions used to plot the original waveforms also apply to the appended waveforms.
  Additionally, if you plot an analog or complex waveform on the waveform graph and you use a plot method with an options parameter, the DefaultWaveformPlotOptions or DefaultComplexWaveformPlotOptions properties no longer update to the values you specified in options.
• When deploying a Web application that uses licensed Measurement Studio components, you can no longer license those components by copying their .lic files to the deployed system. Instead, you must either build and deploy an App_Licenses.dll file, or you must install and activate a valid version of Measurement Studio on the deployed system. Refer to the Licensing Your Web Application section of the Deploying Measurement Studio Web Applications topic for information on building an App_Licenses.dll file.
• Measurement Studio support for Visual Studio 2010 does not include the following obsolete types: NationalInstruments.AnalogWaveform, NationalInstruments.AnalogWaveformSample, and NationalInstruments.AnalogWaveformSampleCollection. These members have been obsolete since Measurement Studio 8.1; however, Measurement Studio support for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 will continue to include them.

2009

• Measurement Studio 2009 uses the latest version of the Intel Math Kernel Library (MKL) to accelerate linear algebra operations. Some of the functions in the latest Intel MKL return different results compared to previous versions of MKL due to higher optimization, resulting in slight numerical differences between Measurement Studio 2009 and previous versions.
• The default Name property on a TdmsFile is now the filename without the extension instead of TDMS File.
• When writing analog or digital waveforms to a TDMS channel group, the wf_samples property now contains the number of samples in the most recently written waveform instead of the total number of samples written by all waveforms.
• When writing time stamp values in TDMS, the values are now converted to UTC instead of being written using local values. You can use the TDMS UTC Converter Tool to convert from the time zone you specify to UTC for all date/time data types in a file. You typically need to do this for existing files that fit the following criteria:
  • You wrote the files with a version of the TDMS class library included in Measurement Studio 8.6.1 or earlier.
  • You need to read the files with a version of the TDMS class library included in a version of Measurement Studio newer than 8.6.1, DIAdem, or LabVIEW.
  • The files contain time-stamped data, where the absolute time of the time stamps is important.
  The TDMS UTC converter tool is located in the [InstallDir]\Common\Tdms folder. For more information, refer to the TDMS UTC Converter Readme in the [InstallDir]\Common\Tdms folder.
• When reading time stamp values in TDMS, the values are now converted to local values. You can use the TDMS UTC Converter Tool to convert from the time zone you specify to UTC for all date/time data types in a file. You typically need to do this for existing files that fit the following criteria:
  • You wrote the files with a version of the TDMS class library included in Measurement Studio 8.6.1 or earlier.
  • You need to read the files with a version of the TDMS class library included in a version of Measurement Studio newer than 8.6.1, DIAdem, or LabVIEW.
  • The files contain time-stamped data, where the absolute time of the time stamps is important.
  The TDMS UTC converter tool is located in the [InstallDir]\Common\Tdms folder. For more information, refer to the TDMS UTC Converter Readme in the [InstallDir]\Common\Tdms folder.

8.6.1

No known incompatibilities were introduced in Measurement Studio 8.6.1.

8.6

• Previous Measurement Studio versions reserved only the following network variable process names: fp, lv, and System. Measurement Studio 8.6 also reserves any network variable process that begins with the NI_ prefix. Reserved process names are not case-sensitive, and an attempt to create a process using a reserved name will raise an exception.
• In Measurement Studio 8.6, ReadData reports the buffer status and data quality of network variables in real time with each call to the method. In previous versions of Measurement Studio, ReadData reported the buffer status and data quality at the time the data was placed in the buffer. The new behavior does not affect the data values in the buffer.
• In previous versions of Measurement Studio, if you use ReadData to subscribe to an implicity created variable, you subscribe to the variable before any data is written to the variable, and then you write data to the variable, you receive two data items in the buffer. The first data item contains a data status of noKnownValue and no actual value. The second data item contains a data status of good and the actual value. In Measurement Studio 8.6, in this scenario, you only receive one data item with the actual value. The data item that contains noKnownValue no longer appears.

8.5

• The DigitalWaveformGraph and the DigitalWaveformGraph no longer display fractional values when zooming into the plot area when the x-axis is displaying sample values. The x-axis only displays discrete sample values with this update.

• In the Add New Item dialog, the NI DAQ Component wizard, the NI VISA Task wizard, and the NI Instrument Driver wizard are now located in the root folder of the Categories pane instead of in the Measurement Studio folder.

8.1.2

• Upgrading to Measurement Studio 8.1.2 and later versions from 8.1.1 and earlier versions may cause the Analysis library to produce numerical differences in floating point results and different results for exceptional inputs, such as positive or negative infinity and NaN. These differences may occur because the underlying C Analysis library has been recompiled in Measurement Studio 8.1.2 to take advantage of new processors and operating systems.

• In Measurement Studio 8.1.2 and later, when you add a new annotation programmatically, the control assigns the annotation a unique name, in the format of Annotation-n, where n is a number. In previous versions of Measurement Studio, the control finds the lowest n that yields a name that is not the same as the name of another annotation in the collection. In Measurement Studio 8.1.2 and later, the control finds the lowest n that is greater than or equal to the number of items in the collection.

  For example, consider the scenario where you have a collection that has two annotations, named Annotation-2 and Annotation-3, and you add an annotation. In previous versions of Measurement Studio, the name of the added annotation is Annotation-1. In Measurement Studio 8.1.2 and later, the name of the added annotation is Annotation-4.

8.1.1

No known incompatibilities were introduced in Measurement Studio 8.1.1.

8.1

• Measurement Studio .NET assemblies are not Authenticode signed in Measurement Studio 8.1. Authenticode signing was removed from Measurement Studio assemblies to work around a problem in the .NET Framework, whereby applications that use Authenticode assemblies take a long time to load when running on a machine in a limited network. Refer to KnowledgeBase article 3HQAOI5B: Measurement Studio .NET Assemblies Take More Than 10 Seconds to Load at Run Time for more information. Contact National Instruments if you require Authenticode signed .NET assemblies. Refer to Technical Support and Professional Services for information on how to contact NI.
• The Measurement Studio ASP.NET New Web Site wizard is installed in the Measurement Studio Standard Edition. However, the Web Forms assembly, which contains the Measurement Studio Web Forms user interface controls, is not included in the Standard Edition.
• Measurement Studio support for Visual Studio 6.0 is now considered legacy. There have been no changes to this product since Measurement Studio 8.0.1. The label on this disc reads Measurement Studio 8.0.1 Support for Visual Studio 6.0.

8.0.1

• Tasks created with Instrument I/O Assistant 2.0 or higher honor the binary data types you select in the Instrument I/O Assistant task. When upgrading an Instrument I/O Assistant 1.x task to an Instrument I/O Assistant 2.0 or higher task, you might need to modify the code that calls the Instrument I/O Assistant task by changing the data types that you pass to the task. Refer to the Using an Instrumentation Task Class in a Project topic in the NI Measurement Studio Help for more information.

8.0

• The .NET and Visual C++ Analysis 8.0 and later class libraries now use the BLAS/LAPACK algorithms to decrease computation time for linear algebra functions and to provide more accurate results. These changes to underlying Analysis class libraries caused the values returned by some existing functions to change between versions 7.1 and 8.0.

7.1

• The CNiLvRealTimeSharedUInt8, CNiLvRealTimeSharedInt16, CNiLvRealTimeSharedInt32, CNiLvRealTimeSharedReal32, and CNiLvRealTimeSharedReal64 classes are deprecated. Use the CNiLvRealTimeSharedUInt8ByName, CNiLvRealTimeSharedInt16ByName, CNiLvRealTimeSharedInt32ByName, CNiLvRealTimeSharedReal32ByName, and CNiLvRealTimeSharedReal64ByName classes instead.
• The CNiWebOptions class has been removed. Now use the following class library-specific classes:
  
  • For Excel, use CNiExcelWebOptions.
  • For Word, use CNiWordWebOptions.
• The SetSize and Resize methods in the CNiBoolVector class are no longer virtual. SetSize and Resize are inherited from the base class CNiGenericVector.

7.0

• If you install Measurement Studio 2010 on a machine with Measurement Studio 6.0 or LabVIEW 6.1, Measurement Studio 6.0 or LabVIEW 6.1 NI-Reports support will not function properly. To fix Measurement Studio 6.0 or LabVIEW 6.1 NI-Reports support, complete the following steps:
  
  1. Uninstall Measurement Studio 2010.
  2. Go to Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\NI-Reports and delete the NiReports.dll file.
  3. Repair Measurement Studio 6.0 or LabVIEW 6.1.

Modifications to Existing .NET API Members

The following table shows members that were overridable in previous versions of Measurement Studio and are now non-overridable. The table shows whether these members have been changed to sealed override or non-virtual and the version of Measurement Studio in which the incompatibility was introduced.

The following table lists obsoleted members, the members that have replaced them, and the version of Measurement Studio in which the incompatibility was introduced.

See Also