LVAddons
The LVAddons directory contains drivers and toolkits that are version-independent and therefore do not need to be updated when using different versions of LabVIEW. It is supported by LabVIEW 2022 Q3 and later.
Location
The default location on Windows is "C:\Program Files\NI\LVAddons\". The location can be changed by setting the LVAddons.CustomLocation configuration key to the desired path. In LabVIEW 2024 Q1 and later, additional locations can be added by setting the LVAddons.AdditionalLocations configuration key to a semicolon-delimited list of paths. These locations overlay the default or custom location.
Structure
The LVAddons directory contains a subdirectory for each add-on, each of which has one or more directories for a version of the add-on. Each version contains a lvaddoninfo.json file with metadata and directories that contain the add-on files. The folders may reflect any of the folders in the LabVIEW installation (e.g., vi.lib).
These directories and files overlay the LabVIEW installation directory. If a file with the same name exists in multiple directories, the first file found is used. The order in which directories are scanned may vary and can be determined using the Build And Resolve Symbolic Path function with "symbolic path id" set to "<libdir>".
Examples
Adoption
NI is actively working on moving drivers and toolkits to the LVAddons directory[1].
Further use
In addition to toolkits and drivers, the LVAddons directory can be used to provide version-independent access to custom toolkits, drivers, and libraries. For example, PPLs or DLLs.