With the introduction of NI Package Manager in LabVIEW 2017, doing a complete removal of LabVIEW has become a little bit more difficult, with some dire consequences if not done correctly (I know, as I've had to rebuild two Windows 10 PCs and have yet to have a "local" LabVIEW 2017 system for testing and development).
I've been running LabVIEW 2018 that I've installed on a Windows 10 VM. However, I also need a LabVIEW 2017 system for some work. What I decided to do was to clone the LabVIEW 2018 VM, rename it to LabVIEW 2017, remove LabVIEW 2018 completely, and do a "fresh" install of LabVIEW 2017.
Before completing this task, I placed a Service Call to NI to ask how to remove NI Package Manager -- the documentation for this is pretty obscure, and took both of us working together about 25 minutes to find it. But the process did seem to work, and I'm currently installing LabVIEW 2017.
Here are the steps.
- Open Control Panel, go to Programs and Features, and find National Instruments Software. Click on it, which starts NI Package Manager. Select all Programs (check box at the top). Note that NI Package Manager is not selected. Choose Remove. Reboot when done.
- Repeat Step 1. You may notice that you still have multiple "Features" installed. These are (probably) Device Drivers. Uncheck "Programs" (I think that's what the button says) and the other Features will become visible. Again, select all, Remove, and Reboot.
- Again open Programs and Features. You should still see National Instruments Software and NI Package Manager entries. You might also see VISA entries near the end of the (alphabetical) list, but should see nothing else that screams "LabVIEW" at you. If this is the case, you are now ready to remove NI Package Manager.
- Click NI Package Manager. You use it to remove itself. Read the warnings that NI puts in, and be really sure that you want to do this. Proceed when ready (or sufficiently brave).
- When finished, you may or may not have "lost" the NI Software and NI Package Manager entries. I recall that I may have needed to open one or both of these (wasn't taking careful notes), but with a few clicks, both entries disappeared.
- If you have (as I did) VISA entries still in the Programs and Features list, you can safely uninstall them by double-clicking and choosing Uninstall. Again, you may have to do it more than once (they are inter-linked in some strange way).
- Reboot.
- I chose to remove the NI Folders from Program Files, Program Files (x86), and Program Data. Before doing so, I checked and verified that there did not seem to be anything "vital" there. I did not touch the Registry.
LabVIEW 2017 (32-bit) appeared to install correctly. I installed LabVIEW Vision, DAQmx, and VISA. I tested it by getting VIPM to install the OpenG Toolkit, which also succeeded.
I'm going to leave this post here for comments. There's an Idea Exchange entry from Someone Who Should Remain Anonymous asking for a "better Uninstall Tool" -- this Post isn't exactly "it", but it might serve as the "Solution". If nothing better surfaces in a week, I'll go ahead and mark this Post as the Solution.
Bob Schor