What Do I Need to Run Stand-Alone LabVIEW Applications?

Issue Details

• I have developed a LabVIEW application(EXE), what do I need to run it in another computer?
• Can I move the EXE to the Run-Time folder of the development machine (C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\Shared\LabVIEW Run-Time) and copy & paste the entire folder to another computer to run the application without installing the LabVIEW Run-Time?
• I have developed an application with LabVIEW 2011; however now I upgraded my software version to LabVIEW 2017 running on Windows 7 PC. What do I need to install in order to run my old application on the same PC?

Solution

• To run an LabVIEW application, the corresponding version of the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine must be installed on the PC.
• The installation process must be completed because it may modify Windows registry to ensure the OS is able to run LabVIEW applications. Simply copying and pasting the entire folder does not complete the installation process and will not work.
• For the third one, You can develop stand-alone applications (executables) that only require the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine to run on systems without LabVIEW installed. This means you should install LabVIEW Run-Time Engine 2011 in order to run your old program. 

Additional Information

You do not have to download and install the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine separately on the deployment PC. Instead, you can include the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine in the installer when you build your application. This way, when you run the installer on another PC, the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine will be installed automatically during the installation process.

Please refer to this KB about installing LabVIEW Run-Time: Install or Include LabVIEW Runtime Engine for LabVIEW Applications - NI.