How do I turn off background ni file activity when not using Labview? files such as nimxs.exe, nipalsm.exe, nipalsm.exe, nisvcloc.exe, nicitdl5.exe

Question

How do I turn off background ni file activity when not using Labview? I use labview rarely, and I also use my computer for demanding multimedia applications, including multitrack digital audio recording. I need to reduce as much background activity as possible, and taking a look with task manager I see files such as nimxs.exe, nipalsm.exe, nipalsm.exe, nisvcloc.exe, and nicitdl5.exe running even when I haven't used Labview (8 I believe). These files run even after I right click the NI icon on the lower right and turn off the application. I would like the computer to boot up without these files, and for the necessary files to be activated only when I start the program.
Can this be done or do I have to remove labview from the system to improve performance?
Thanks

Answer 1

Hello, those processes are part of running NI services that start when Windows boots.  These processes serve varied purposes and stopping them can have undefined and unknown consiquences for your NI products.  These products run at "normal" priority meaning that they should be preempted by any process running at a higher priority which I would expect your other application to be doing given their time sensitivity.  That being said, in Windows XP (I can't speak for other OSes), you can lower their priorities even greater through task manager (right click the process»set priority) to further remove them from contention for resources.  If you want to prevent them from running you can set the service startup type to "manual" in Control Panel»Administrative Tools»Services.  Right click the process go to Properties and Under the General tab choose Startup Type»Manual.  This will start up the processes only when something directly starts it up.  LabVIEW will start these processes up as it attempts to use them.  When you shut down LabVIEW you will need to manually shut down these processes through task manager.  Again, doing this can cause problems with your NI products on your system and it is not advised.
Travis M
LabVIEW R&D
National Instruments