LabWindows/CVI


LabWindows/CVI is an ANSI C programming environment for test and measurement developed by National Instruments. The program was originally released as LabWindows for DOS in 1987, but was soon revisioned for the Microsoft Windows platform. The current version of LabWindows/CVI is 2020.
LabWindows/CVI uses the same libraries and data-acquisition modules as the better known National Instrument product LabVIEW and is thus highly compatible with it.
LabVIEW is targeted more at domain experts and scientists, and CVI more towards software engineers that are more comfortable with text-based linear languages such as C.

Release history

Starting with LabWindows/CVI 8.0, major versions are released around the first week of August, to coincide with the annual National Instruments conference NI Week, and followed by a bug-fix release the following February.
In 2009, National Instruments started to name the releases after the year in which they are released. The bugfix is called a Service Pack.
Name/versionBuild numberDateOperating system support and notes
The LabWindows/CVI project begins1987-
LabWindows/CVI 1.0Jan 1989DOS
LabWindows/CVI 2.0Apr 1991DOS. GUI Tools and Memory Extender
LabWindows/CVI 3.0Mar 1994DOS, Windows 3.1, and Solaris
LabWindows/CVI 3.1Jul 1995generate codes automatically
LabWindows/CVI 3.1.11995first release with "application builder" capability
LabWindows/CVI 4.0May 1996External C/C++ compiler compatibility
LabWindows/CVI 4.0.1Aug 1996-
LabWindows/CVI 5.0Feb 1998support for VXI and IVI
LabWindows/CVI 5.5Feb 2000Multithreaded libraries, debugging
LabWindows/CVI 6.0Oct 2001ActiveX support, improved presentation
LabWindows/CVI 7.0Jul 2003use Workspace
LabWindows/CVI 7.1Sep 2004completion automatically
LabWindows/CVI 8.0Oct 2005support for.NET assemblies
LabWindows/CVI 8.0.1-
LabWindows/CVI 8.12006-
LabWindows/CVI 8.1.1-
LabWindows/CVI 8.52007-
LabWindows/CVI 8.5.1-
LabWindows/CVI 9.02008ANSI C99 support
LabWindows/CVI 9.0.1-
LabWindows/CVI 20099.12009create 64-bit applications
LabWindows/CVI 2009 SP1-
LabWindows/CVI 201010.02010Linux support
LabWindows/CVI 2010 SP1-
LabWindows/CVI 201212.02012-
LabWindows/CVI 2012 SP1-
LabWindows/CVI 201313.02013Changed compiler to Clang 2.9. New debugger running in its own process.
LabWindows/CVI 2013 SP1-
LabWindows/CVI 2013 SP2-
LabWindows/CVI 201515.02015upgrade to Clang 3.3
LabWindows/CVI 2015 SP115.12016-
LabWindows/CVI 201717.02017Tracepoints, word/semantic highlighting, thread-specific breakpoints, comment/uncomment
LabWindows/CVI 201919.0May 2019Updates to Source Code Editor: zooming, code snippets, multi-line edits
LabWindows/CVI 202020.0Sep 2020UTF-8 support
LabWindows/CVI 2020 f320.0Feb 2023Windows 11 support