Decreasing Size or Changing Location of NIFPGA Folder

Issue Details

Solution

For LabVIEW versions previous to 2024 Q1:

Folder c:\NIFPGA contains Xilinx Tools (compilers), which are necessary for compiling FPGA code created in LabVIEW FPGA Module. The size of this folder is given by a number of different compilers installed on your PC. 

If you don't use LabVIEW FPGA Module or don't develop FPGA code, you can uninstall Xilinx Tools from the PC to decrease the size of c:\NIFPGA folder.

You can also move c:\NIFPGA folder to a different location using a function called NTFS symbolic link. Follow these steps to do this:

1. Move the c:\NIFPGA directory wherever you want it.
2. Open a command window with Administrator privileges (search for cmd.exe in the start menu search, then right click the cmd.exe result and choose Run as administrator).
3. type cd c:\
4. type mklink /D NIFPGA <path to real NIFPGA>

Run an FPGA compilation to verify proper functionality.

For LabVIEW versions 2024 Q1 and later:

There are a couple of registries that need to be modified to move the NIFPGA folder location:

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\National Instruments\LabVIEW\XX.0\AddOns\FPGA\ (where XX is the short version of LabVIEW, here you'll see 24.0, if using LabVIEW 2025 it would be 25.0)
2.  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\National Instruments\LabVIEW\10.0\AddOns\FPGA\CompileWorkerPath
3.  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\National Instruments\FPGA CompileWorker\1.0\WorkingDirectory 

The registry entry paths for LabVIEW 64-bit will not have the Wow6423Node in the path and so would be just: \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\National Instruments\FPGA CompileWorker\1.0 

If using the IP Integration Node in LabVIEW, it is querying another registry entry:  Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\National Instruments\FPGA\CompilerWorkingDirectory 

Note: The described workaround is not fully tested by National Instruments and therefore it's not officially supported.

Additional Information

An NTFS symbolic link (symlink) is a filesystem object in the NTFS filesystem that points to another filesystem object. Symbolic links should be transparent to users; the links appear as normal files or directories, and can be acted upon by the user or application in exactly the same manner.