Can I Run Multiple LabVIEW Run-Time Engines Simultaneously?

Updated Dec 23, 2023

Issue Details

I have multiple runtime engine versions installed on my PC. Is it possible to run multiple applications built for those separate versions at the same time? Is there a chance the different versioned code will interfere with each other during run-time?

Solution

Since each run-time engine is its own encapsulated LabVIEW environment, multiple run-time engines can be running code at the same time. However there are a few considerations when doing so.
  • Memory Usage: Multiple run-time engines use up unnecessary memory since multiple instances will still need to load the same objects in memory. On one run-time engine, multiple programs can share these objects and lower the overall performance footprint of the system.
  • DAQmx: Since only one version of DAQmx drivers can be installed on one system, the previous statements are not valid for software using DAQmx. Two applications with different versions that also use DAQmx will be unable to run since only one application will have access to the correct DAQmx version.