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IO Libraries Suite: Why can’t I talk to my Keysight USB instrument when NI-VISA is also installed on Windows Vista?

IO Libraries Revisions: Suite 15.0 and Suite 15.0 LXI compliant Update

Note: this issue only affects Windows Vista PC’s. This situation situation has been resolved in IO Libraries Suite 15.1.

Upgrade to IO Libraries Suite 15.1, or later, to fix this problem.


If the Keysight USB driver is associated with the device, the USB driver vendor will be identified as Keysight Technologies.

In this case, Connection Expert shows the USBTMC device in the connected state and the Connection Expert and Keysight’s Interactive IO program can communicate with it. It will not, however, be usable by a standard VISA program and it will not be visible in NI-MAX. The VISA Open Report will show that this device is managed by Keysight Connection Expert as unavailable to a VISA program.


If you need to change the USBTMC driver associated with a device, you must do it for each device you wish to change. From the Windows device manager, right click on the device you wish to change and select ‘Update Driver Software…’. Choose ‘Browse my computer for driver software’ then choose ‘Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer’. From that list select the driver you desire and then click ‘Next’ to install the driver. You may be asked to reboot when you make this change.

  • If you choose the NI driver, your device will be visible in NI-MAX and will work with normal VISA programs. The device will appear as failed in Keysight Connection Expert.
  • If you choose the Keysight driver, your device will not be visible in NI-MAX and it will not work with a normal VISA program. The device will be visible and connected in Keysight Connection Expert.

Last Updated: 05January, 2009

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