NI Installer Fails on Windows XP/Vista and Windows Server 2003

Issue Details

I have built a distribution using NI software and selected Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 as the minimum operating system version. However I receive errors when I try to install this built installer on a Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 machine.

Solution

NI installers will no longer support Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 as of Meta Deployment Framework (MDF) 16.0, which is the underlying engine used to create distributions. You may have had an older version of your ADE that can build MDF distributions that run on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003. However, if you have installed any NI software that includes the 16.0 MDF Support component, then your system will be upgraded to the 16.0 MDF engine. This means that you can no longer build distributions that run on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003, even if their ADE originally supported this OS. If you would like to know what version of MDF you have currently installed on your system, navigate to <ProgramData>\National Instruments\MDF\BinRTE folder. Right click on the MdfCommon.dll»Properties»Details»File Version.

If you absolutely need to run your deployment installer on Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows Server 2003, you can complete the following steps. NI doesn't guarantee that your deployment installer will always successfully run upon the following modification.
 

1. Open the setup.ini file located in your built deployment installer folder.
2. Search for the VersionNTMin=6,1,7601,1,0 line.
3. Modify this line to the VersionNTMin=5,1,2600,3,0.
4. Save the setup.ini file.
5. This will change the minimum supported OS version for the deployment installer from Windows 7 SP1 to Windows XP SP3.

Note: You will need to repeat these steps every time you build a new deployment installer.