[Jim Kring]

One of the great features in VIPM Professional is the ability to create VI Package Configurations (or VIPC files), which are a snapshot of the packages installed in a given version of LabVIEW.

One question that we get a lot at JKI is:

If I am using source code control, why do I need VI Package Configurations?

When you keep your project files in a source code control system (such as Subversion, Visual Source Safe, Perforce, etc.), it is important to realize that the LabVIEW User Libraries (user.lib) folder is not under source code control, since it's not beneath your project folder. This means that you have no configuration management of the OpenG, 3rd party, and in-house reuse add-ons that are installed in LabVIEW.

A VI Package Configuration file stores a configuration snapshot of what's installed beneath LabVIEW, so that you can easily restore that state when you are going to work on your project. When you create a VIPC file and keep it in your project folder (which is under source code control) you are effectively keeping your LabVIEW user libraries folder under source code control, on a per-project basis.

This capability is the part of LabVIEW project configuration management (source code control) that's always been missing.