LabVIEW 2014: Purchase, Download, and Install Instructions Originally Documented: May 2014

Updates: September 2014 This document contains the following sections:

Purchasing LabVIEW 2014 Downloading LabVIEW 2014 Installing LabVIEW 2014 (Windows) Adding the MINDSTORMS Module to LabVIEW 2014 (Windows) Installing LabVIEW 2014 (Mac OSX) Adding the MINDSTORMS Module to LabVIEW 2014 (Mac OSX)

Note: original documentation (e.g. most screenshots of the procedure) was generated in May (originally for the prior versions of LabVIEW and the MINDSTORMS Module). The instructions should be fairly similar for the 2014 version of these products (released in August 2014), but some screenshots will be different. (Also, Studica has updated their website, so some parts of the ordering/purchasing process may look/be different as well.) You need to: (1) Purchase, (2) Download the LabVIEW installer (Mac or PC), (3) install LabVIEW (follow the operating system specific instructions), and (4) download and install the MINDSTORMS Module on top of LabVIEW (again, following operating system specific instructions). Purchasing LabVIEW 2014 Go to the Studica website and find NI LabVIEW 2014 Student Edition: http://www.studica.com/us/en/National­Instruments­students­ni­labview­mydaq/labview­student­edition/779252­02­2014.html

“Purchase Download” and add this product to Shopping Cart (should be ~$20).

Note that this product requires “verification” that you are a Student/Faculty/Non­Profit. Upon completion of the order, you will be prompted to e­mail, fax, or mail in your Student or Faculty or Non­Profit verification. At Checkout, choose New Customers to create an account. It will ask for a shipping address; note that nothing will be physically shipped to you as it is a download product, but the address is required, so fill it in anyway. Complete the registration process, entering payment information, and create a password. After placing the order, you should get a confirmation screen that may look something like this:

At this time, you should get two emails from Studica:

one with your receipt one about creating an account.

Since this is a Student Edition (Academic), you are required to provide Educational Verification. There are several ways to do this. The two “quick methods” are:

1. to upload a picture of your current Student Photo ID, and; 2. to give your first and last name, your date of birth, the last four digits of your social

security number, and the name of your school. (The other alternative is to email a picture of your ID to orders@studica.com with the subject line: “Re: Order: ######”.) There are two links to do the “quick methods”: one is the confirmation screen that appears right after you place the order (pictured above) and the other is the tan box in the confirmation email.

Note: if you follow the email link, both “Click here” buttons for Upload Method and Quick Verify lead to the same screen:

If you follow the link in the confirmation screen, it will look like this:

I tried using the link from the email. However, it would not accept a JPEG photo when I tried to upload a picture of my ID. (I tried twice with two different photos: one from the camera on my laptop and one from my phone). I instead tried to input my information and get verification­ that worked BUT if you do this (and you are from Tufts), put your Organization as Tufts University, NOT Tufts University School of Engineering. If you do that, you will get this screen:

If this happens, just go back to the email, click on the link again and it should take you back so you can try again. If this happens more than once, I would send an email with a picture of your ID. The next morning I got an email to say order was updated to “processing.”

You may (or may not) get an email updating the Order Status:

Check the “My Downloads” on the Studica Website periodically until the “NI LabVIEW Student Edition” appears. You can get to this scren from the top right “My Account” (and selecting “My Downloads”). Select the “Download Link” to start the download.

Downloading LabVIEW 2014 Once the download is available, copy the Product Key and click on the download link (from the screen in the picture above). After clicking the download link, scroll down and choose the appropriate file for your operating system.

For downloading the Windows installer executable, click ‘Save File’ in the popup dialog.

Go to your downloads, open the file, and when you see the following pop­up, click ‘Run.’

Choose a place to save the file; it is easiest to save it to the desktop. Then you should see the download begin:

For Mac OSX, just download the NI­LabVIEW_2013­Student­Edition_mac.zip file.

Installing LabVIEW 2014 (Windows) Once you have downloaded the zip file installer, click on this icon on your desktop:

Then this will pop­up. Click ‘OK.’

Next you need to unzip the file. Click ‘Unzip.’

Once this is done, if it asks if you want to allow National Instruments to make a change to your hard drive, click ‘Allow.’ Then you should see the LabVIEW installer:

Click ‘Next>>’ and fill in your information. When it asks for Serial Number, paste in Product Key from earlier (from the Studica website under My Downloads). Click ‘Next>>’ until you have to agree to the Terms and Conditions and go until it begins the install process:

At some point, you might get this pop­up:

This is just about adding technical support, so it’s ok to install without. Click ‘Decline Support.’ When the download finishes, you should see the next window (choose the first option):

In the next screens, put in the Serial Number (Product Key from earlier) and then your National Instruments username and password. This is not the same as your Studica account, so you may have to create a User Profile at National Instruments (ni.com).

Then, continue to click next until you see a progress bar, which should quickly switch to this:

You should also receive an email with Activation codes that you should save in case you need them in the future. Clicking ‘Finish’ will prompt you to restart your computer. When it does restart, you should have LabVIEW 2014 installed. Look for it in your Program Files. Adding the MINDSTORMS Module to LabVIEW 2014 (Windows) In addition to LabVIEW 2014 we need to add the MINDSTORMS Module to enable LabVIEW to control our LEGO MINDSTORMS robots. Go to the National Instruments website here:

http://www.ni.com/download/labview­nxt­module­2014/4761/en/

Download the EXE installer (should have been released circa Aug 2014):

Click on the NI Recommended option, then you should get a pop­up. Click “Save File.”

Go to your Downloads and open the file. Click “Run.”

Save the file to your Desktop; you can delete this later. Now you should see this:

When the Download finishes, click “Open.” Then click “Ok.” Then unzip the files by clicking “Unzip” here:

When it asks if you want to allow National Instruments to make a change to your computer, click “Yes.” Then, you will see:

Click “Next” until you get to the Licensing Agreement­ agree and click “Next” again. Click “Next” one more time and the download should begin.

Once this finishes, open LabVIEW and you should be all set. You can check by going to LabVIEW >> File >> New VI… Go to the Block Diagram (the window with the white background) and right­click anywhere in the white. You should see a menu with a MINDSTORMS Robotics sub­menu. This indicates that (1) LabVIEW installed properly and (2) the MINDSTORMS Robotics module in included.

Installing LabVIEW 2014 (Mac OSX) Unzip the zip file downloaded to create the “LabVIEW 2014 Student” installation package.

Note that double­clicking the package won’t let you install it (at least on a computer with strict security settings) due to the file being downloaded from the internet. This is the screen (with no “Open” button that you’ll get):

Instead, right­click the package file and select “Open With” and open with the Installer.

Now you can Open the package and begin the installation (see how dialog has changed).

Click “Open”, progress through the standard installer dialog screens, agreeing to terms, etc.

Use the default install location, and eventually it should begin the installation of files. In some instances, it might say the installation has failed. This is NOT necessarily true!

To test if it worked or not (and you don’t even have to restart your computer), open the LabVIEW 2014 application file and see if it runs. This file can be found in your Applications folder under “National Instruments”, “LabVIEW 2014,” and “LabVIEW.” (You’ll notice in the screenshot below there are several other versions of LabVIEW installed on this computer simultaneously.) If the application opens, then you have successfully installed LabVIEW.

If you just opened LabVIEW, be sure to QUIT LabVIEW so that you can then install the MINDSTORMS Module (see next section). Adding the MINDSTORMS Module to LabVIEW 2014 (Mac OSX) If you have LabVIEW open, quit LabVIEW. Then go to the National Instruments website to download the free MINDSTORMS Module to add onto LabVIEW 2014. Note: there are different versions of this Module (and some don’t support the EV3 hardware that we’ll be using). To make sure you have the right one, you want one released circa Aug 2014. URL: http://www.ni.com/download/labview­nxt­module­2014/4941/en/

Other thing to note on this page: download the .dmg file (installer for Mac). To download the free file, click on the .dmg link. You may have to log into the National Instruments site (and create an account if you haven’t previously).

Once you have downloaded the dmg file, double­click and open it to reveal the MODULE package installer. Just like when installing LabVIEW, you will need to “right­click” and select “Open with…” to open this file with the Installer.

Progress through the installation process.

To check if everything was installed properly, open LabVIEW 2013 (again find in your applications) and from the File menu select “New VI”. If you “right­click” on the window that opens, in the dialog that opens up (called the Palette), you should see a “MINDSTORMS Robotics” option.