VISA/Benchvue/UltraScope mess

[sportq]

A while back I installed Agilent Benchvue to control E3631A Power supplies via GPIB/HPIB, everything worked well. Then last week I bought a Rigol DS1074Z scope and attempted to use supplied UltraScope (US) software to remotely control and capture data from it as well.

Agilents instrument explorer application could see the Rigol via the LXI LAN interface but it seemed like Rigol US would not use the Agilent drivers so I installed the National Instruments VISA driver on the CD supplied with the Rigol. All worked well.... for the Rigol however Benchvue has broken. It can no longer talk reliably to the E3631A, it disconnects every 2-3 seconds.

I must admit, I'll completely confused by all the layers of software and drivers. Can NI VISA drivers coexist with the Agilent drivers and if not, how can I have multiple manufacturers control applications installed on the same PC?

Is there a vendor neutral app that can do this? I know Matlab, NI LabView and other expensive options exist but is there anything low-cost or free?

Pete

[TiN]

There is VISA conflict manager in Agilent IO connectivity suite , which is handy to allocate specific interfaces for specific VISA libraries.
But yea, it can be a mess, specially with Tektronix VISA. I had to use separate computer with access with remote desktop to use TLA software, as it's VISA don't like anything else...

[sportq]

Jeez, so it's as bad as I thought. Thanks for the tip about the conflict manager though, I'll look into that.

I forgot to mention that in Benchvue there is a drop down list in the bottom right of the window that lists both driver libraries, so it's a least aware of the NI drivers however selecting either one makes no difference, same disconnect problem after a couple of seconds.

Pete