Solution
It is not necessary to have Measurement Studio in order to communicate with DAQ cards in Visual Studio. NI provides a native .NET API for NI-DAQmx that is available as part of the NI-DAQmx driver and does not require Measurement Studio.
If Measurement Studio is installed, it will provide additional native .NET class libraries, integration, and code generation tools for Visual Studio. For example, Measurement Studio 7.0 and later adds the DAQ Assistant for code generation, integrated Visual Studio help, user interface .NET controls, and project wizards.
To install .NET support with the NI-DAQmx driver,
refer to Installing NI Software for Visual Studio C# or .NET Development. For NI-DAQmx .NET Library help documentation and examples, refer to
.NET Resources for NI Hardware and Software.