Solution
This "Select Source" dialog box is appearing because there are software installer dependencies missing for the build. In order to build a new installer that contains a particular product, files from the original installer media of the selected product are required. For example, if NI-DAQmx is being included installer, the Application Builder could prompt for Device Driver CD that contains NI-DAQmx.
Note: Before fixing the dependency issue for the installer the program is complaining about, please check if the installers being included in the distribution file are necessary for running your application. In some cases, you might be including additional software that is not being used in your application and might include a dependency that is not installed in your computer.
The solution to these dependency errors depends on how the software included in the installer was originally downloaded:
- If the additional installer has been downloaded from ni.com/downloads and the source has been deleted, it will be necessary to download the same version and unzip it again before the build, and point the Installer source location field to this new folder.
- Point the Select Source dialog to the directory in which setup.exe was extracted. For IVI drivers and self-extracting executables (.exe), the WinZip Self-Extractor extracts files to C:\National Instruments Downloads\. If the download came as a .zip file, extract the files, then point it to where the extracted setup.exe is located.
- If the additional installer has been installed from a CD or USB, it will be necessary to put CD or USB into the drive before building the installer.
- If it has been installed from a network location, make sure the access to the files on the network drive or one of the two above options is still possible.
- If the software on the PC was installed from a LabVIEW-built installer, the "Select Source" dialog may reference that LabVIEW-built installer. It will be necessary to point to that installer to get this dialog box to not come up anymore.
- If that doesn't work, repair or force reinstall the same software stack as the computer that built the original installer to have fresh installs of the software with the setup files.
- It is also possible to upgrade to a newer version of the software by downloading it from the NI website.
If none of the above steps solve the issue and you recently build an installer and then deleted it, this issue may be occurring because there is a reference to a previously built installer in the Operating System Registry that LabVIEW is trying to use when building a new installer. Therefore, to solve that problem you have to delete the key registry that is associated with that installer. To complete this task you have to follow the steps listed below.
Note: Proceed with extreme caution with the following steps, as they require you to manipulate System Registries. Make sure that you are located in the correct path before deleting any key registry as removing the incorrect one could cause damage to your system.
1. Type Regedit in the Windows search bar, and run the Registry Editor Application as administrator.
2. Once in the
Registry Editor Window, navigate to the next path:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\National Instruments\Common\Installer\Distributions
3. Once you are on the
Distributions folder, look for the key registry that is associated with that installer and delete it by right-clicking on it. To know exactly which key corresponds to your installer, select the key and look at the right side of the window for more information. Here you will find the
Title, as well as the
Distribution Root (DistRoot).
When it comes to building an installer in LabVIEW, make sure the following settings are selected to avoid this dialog box in the future:
LabVIEW 2013 or Newer
Selecting the
Copy all future installers to this computer when you run them checkbox will cause all future installers to run on the system to automatically copy their products into the local cache during the install. This will prevent future prompts for the location of those installers from within the Installer Builder utility.
LabVIEW 8.6 or Older
In order to avoid the notifications in a version of LabVIEW 8.6 or older, it will be necessary to manually copy the entire contents of a source installer to the hard drive. In the case of NI-DAQmx, that means copying the entire contents of the Device Driver CDs to the hard drive. Then next time an installer is built, change the Installer Source Location in the Advanced Installers dialog box to the location where the contents of the Device Driver CD have been copied to.