What is the difference between the two NI update links?

[AlexNeedsAName]

http://www.ni.com/download/first-rob...e-2016/6492/en



What is the difference between their "more stable experience" and the direct download. And how did they manage to give them both the same MD5 Hash, and link to the same address? These are some leet haxor skills.

[Mark McLeod]

The exe is a program that handles the download of the .zip for you.
If you lose connection partway through, it resumes and completes without having to start all over again from the beginning.

It's not terribly necessary for this small update file, but it may be useful for the much larger basic 2016 LabVIEW download (if you program in LabVIEW) when it is released.

[FrankJ]

One is a downloader that has the ability to be interrupted and restarted. The other is a zip file. You are at the mercy of your internet connection and browser. Successfully executed you end up in the same place.

Ninjaed by Mark.

[nathannfm]

Well I should hope the "downloader" isn't actually 800MB because thst would kind of defeat the purpose... Im guessing the file size and MD5 are a copy/paste error.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by nathannfm

Well I should hope the "downloader" isn't actually 800MB because thst would kind of defeat the purpose... Im guessing the file size and MD5 are a copy/paste error.

The file size and MD5 are of the completed download (the same in both cases) and not of the .exe utility itself.

[FrankJ]

The downloader is much smaller than the update. Not 808 Meg's. As Mark said it is really more useful for large files.

Ahh! Again.

[AlexNeedsAName]

Sorry if it was unclear, this was a joke. For some reason both the downloader and the "direct link" link to the downloader. I was just poking fun at the fact they said it was different when in fact they linked to the same file.

[FrankJ]

One says it is an .exe and the other is a .zip? Those are different files.

[AlexNeedsAName]

Sorry, when you aren't logged in they link to the same place.

1: http://lumen.ni.com/nicif/US/GB_NIDU...-2016/6492/en/

2: http://lumen.ni.com/nicif/US/GB_NIDU...-2016/6492/en/

When you are logged in they do actually go to separate files.

1: http://ftp.ni.com/support/softlib/fi...downloader.exe

2: http://ftp.ni.com/support/softlib/fi...e_2017.0.0.zip