NIDAQ is getting too big!

Question

NI is becoming like Microsoft! I realize that you manufacture many products but the time for device specific NIDAQ packages has come. I use one of your devices but I am forced to download and distribute a driver package that is almost 1GB and takes nearly an hour to install. Please, please, please change this. Let us get packages for just what we want! Small, simple and quick is good. Big, complex and slow is bad.
Thanks,
Adam

Answer 1

Hello Sunil,
It was decided by our R&D department to use the same driver for a
majority of our hardware and make it as easy to use as possible.  This
way, as Alex said, using similar devices would not require major (or in
some case any) changes in code, and new applications would be easy to
program by someone familiar with any of our other devices.  It also
simplifies troubleshooting, reduces the time to configure new devices
(after the first), and makes sure that all hardware is supported to the
same high level our customers expect.
A side effect of this decision (and the major issue with this approach)
is that the initial install is large and takes significant time.  I
agree that this can be annoying, however after completed once, it should
not have to be done again when installing new devices.  Upgrading,
although it is a large file, should not take nearly as long since it
only changes the parts that it needs to, or installs parts that are not
there.  You can also unselect the drivers you do not use from the
Driver CD installer to shorten the time further.
The main reason that we cannot have a simple anti virus-like update is
due to the changes we are making for the upgrade.  It is not just
updating settings or libraries, it is changing parts of the actual
driver code deep within the program.  It is more comparable to a new
version release of the anti-virus software than an update to the virus
definitions.
Since the DAQmx driver is used for most of our hardware (or the driver
that is used is based off of it), the install/upgrades we have are as
device specific as they can be.  The driver CD contains all of our
drivers, but allows you to choose which it installs/modifies.
If you are deploying the driver to a target computer, you can
drastically reduce the size of the installation by choosing a smaller
runtime of the DAQmx driver.  The link that Alex provided, as well as this Developer Zone article discribes how to do that.
This being said, we are always looking for feedback on how we can improve.  I would strongly encourage you to make a Product Suggestion about this.
R&D looks at all of these and uses them in their decision making
processes.  I hope this explanation shows that we are not just giving
you a large download because its easy for us, but we believe the pros
of this method we use outweigh the cons (including the installer).
Neal M.Applications Engineering       National Instruments        www.ni.com/support