NI Batch Installer Builder Known Issues

Overview

This document contains important last-minute information about NI Batch Installer Builder, including known issues.

 Known Issues

The following table contains the NI Batch Installer Builder known issues that were discovered before and since the release of NI Batch Installer Builder. This table is not an exhaustive list of known issues; it is intended to show only the severe and common issues.

IDKnown Issues
NAI haven't been able to build a suite with a mix of 2015 NI software products and 2016 NI software products.

Workaround: You need to upgrade to the NI Batch Installer Builder version 16.0.
NAI want to build a suite with 2015 NI software products on a Windows XP operating system. Can I upgrade to the NI Batch Installer Builder version 16.0?

Workaround: Don't upgrade to the NI Batch Installer Builder version 16.0. NI is officially dropping support for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2003 starting on July 1, 2016.
480596If you kill the NI Batch Installer Builder process (NIBatchInstallerBuilder.exe) in Task Manager while copying an installer to the library, Windows autoplay will be suppressed until you reboot your computer.

Workaround: Reboot your computer.
470995If no nisuite.xml file is present in the build output directory of your batch installer, all existing files in the that directory are included in final build. This issue is most likely to appear if the build fails, or if you killed the build using Windows task manager. The consequences are that extra files may exist, though they should not cause a problem during installation time.

Workaround: Delete the existing suite at the destination before you build an installer.
457512NI Batch Installer Builder is missing the Pin to Task Bar and Pin to Start Menu options.

Workaround: From the Start menu, browse to All Programs»National Instruments»>NI Batch Installer Builder, and drag and drop it into task bar or start bar.
452252You cannot order the installers in the NI Batch Installer Builder product list of your batch installer. The order of installers in a product list is the order in which the products were added to the library.

Note: The order that installers appear in the product list does not indicate the installation order.
437155If you try to copy an installer to library, and the length of the absolute path of any file in that installer at the target directory exceeds the operating system's maximum path length (often 260 characters), you will get a generic copy error. Retrying would result in the same error.

Workaround:  Change the library path in File»Preferences»Advanced Preferences to a shorter path.
474437If you include massive number of installers (usually several dozen) in a batch installer and try to build, the build may fail. The log file will contain this message: "The installer file exists but the open failed, because not enough storage is available to process the MSI open command. For more information, visit ni.com/info and enter the Info Code BatchInstallerBuilderTroubleshooting."

Workaround: Either build the batch installer on a computer with more memory, try freeing up memory on your current computer, or delete some installers from the specification.
455699A batch installer created with NI Batch Installer Builder will not run from directories that contain non-Western characters, if that non-Western language is not the native operating system language.

Workaround: Copy the installer to a directory with Western characters only, and run it from there.
482332If you kill the NIBatchInstallerBuilder.exe process using Task Manager while building a batch installer and then relaunch NI Batch Installer Builder and rebuild the same batch installer build, the results are unpredictable.

Workaround: If you kill NIBatchInstallerBuilder.exe, you should also kill MetaSuiteBuilder.exe, delete the build output directory, and then relaunch NI Batch Installer Builder.
485497Batch Installer Builder returns an error at install time if a patch is added to the library before a patch target.

Workaround:  You must add the patch target before you add the patch. Delete the patch from the library, then add the patch back to the library in the proper order. Alternatively, you can modify the SourceInstallerLibrary.xml configuration file manually by modifying the order of the relevant <SourceInstaller> tags. 
580621Batch Installer Builder does not support packages. Only non-package installers can be added to Batch Installer Builder library.

Workaround:  NA
644625 Batch Installer Builder does not accept the location of 2017 USB based installers. It throws an error stating:
"Select the root directory of a valid National Instruments installer. The directory you should select contains setup.exe".

Workaround:  Importing 2017 USB installer into Batch Installer Builder requires browsing one directory down to find setup.exe. Browse into the directory that has the same name as the suite. For example, "\SPB" for Software Platform Bundle Spring 2017.

 

Glossary of Terms

 

  • Bug ID - When an issue is reported to NI, you may be given this ID or find it on ni.com.  You may also find IDs posted by NI on the discussion forums or in KnowledgeBase articles.
  • Legacy ID – An older issue ID that refers to the same issue.  You may instead find this issue ID in older known issues documents.
  • Description - A few sentences which describe the problem. The brief description given does not necessarily describe the problem in full detail.
  • Workaround - Possible ways to work around the problem.
  • Reported Version - The earliest version in which the issue was reported.
  • Resolved Version - Version in which the issue was resolved or was no longer applicable. "N/A" indicates that the issue has not been resolved.
  • Date Added - The date the issue was added to the document (not the reported date).