Dynamic call of a vi with a reference stored in a global variable

Question

Hello,
I am trying to program a VI which calls DAQmx functions in some cases, in other cases DAQmx may not even be installed. To prevent a broken arrow on machines where DAQmx is not installed, I want to use a sub-VI containing the DAQmx function calls which is called dynamically by a main VI. For speed I want to prevent continuous opening and closing the VI reference, so I want to store the reference to the sub VI in a global variable. In this variable I also want to store the Analog Input Task. I want to use an initialization VI to write the VI reference of the sub VI and to configure and start the Analog Input Task and write the Task ID to that Global, too. In that way I was hoping to be able to improve the performance of the dynamic calls and the Task calls. BUT - when I write the refererence and task to the Global and read it out from another VI, the reference is not valid anymore and the Analog Input task is also not valid, even if both the initialization VI and the Global are still open (but not running). Does somebody have an idea how to solve that? It is a bit difficult to describe, so here is what I want to do in a shorter description :
- run a initialization VI which
  defines a reference to a sub VI which will be called dynamically later on
  and a AI task ID definining a DAQmx physical channel configuration to use for subsequent read cycles
  and writes both (VI reference and AI task) to a global variable
- run another VI which
  reads the VI reference of the VI to call dynamically from that global
  runs the corresponding VI dynamically
  the dynamically called VI performs an AI task corresponding to the DAQmx task ID read from that global (it reads an analog value for instance from the  
  physical channel configured by that AI task) 
Why all that? To prevent creating and destroying the VI reference for each call of the sub VI for speed. And to use the configured DAQmx channel for subsequent read tasks only if the subVI is called dynamically - if it is not, then the application will not see the DAQmx calls and therefore no broken arrow will occur if no DAQmx is installed on the machine.
Can somebody help me with this? Why can't I store and read out the reference to the sub VI to/from a global, and why is the AI task not valid when read out from the dynamically called sub VI? I am somewhat lost with all that...
Thanks in advance,
Gabs

Answer 1

Uh - I am almost getting crazy with that
Kevin, that solution is the right one for programming an application. In that case everything will work fine. But during testing, it is more convenient to call all VIs from their front panels one after another. That's how I'm doing it for everything that needs to be exchanged between such VIs: store them either in a global or in a functional global variable. In that way the user can "play around" with the VIs without wiring them together in a main VI. Therefore, after some thinking I liked Davids idea with that daemon VI (I solved that by adding a boolean in the initialization VI to choose if that daemon is necessary - during testing phase - or not - when using the VIs in a main application). BUT:
David: It does not work!!! I have exactly done what you proposed and this daemon VI is really running, having a True/False frame with a constant of False wired to the selector and holding both the functional global and the dynamically to call VI in the True frame. In that way, after initialization is finished, both VIs are still running but idle. Anyway, when I read back the value of the reference or the DAQmx task, it is invalid again!
That really costs just too much time. Does anybody have any idea what to do now? David, I was hoping that your suggestion would solve the problem, because it would be logical that it would - why then is LabVIEW destroying the reference and task anyway even if that daemon VI containing the functional global is still running???
Regards,
Gabs