National Instruments Software License Information

The UNL College of Engineering has entered a licensing agreement with National Instruments (NI) for free access to software, valued at approximately $100,000. Since you are currently enrolled at or employed by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, you may use the NI software resources for your academic studies and non-commercial research purposes.

Access Information

If you have questions on accessing NI licenses, please contact James Nau.

Student Licenses

Student Licenses are for use by current or enrolled students to complete class work, self-paced learning or to use on university related projects.

Access Student License
Research Licenses

Research Licenses are for use on University of Nebraska owned computers for the purposes of research, teaching and lab use. Faculty and staff access only.

Access Research License
Following installation of the software, the following steps need to be completed to activate it using the license server:
  • Start up NI Licensing, a separate program in the national instruments folder.
  • Click on the file menu, and there should be something about volume licensing. Go there, and add volume license server 'ni-license.unl.edu' and save it.
Note to users of Mac OS X

If you are operating under the research license on a University of Nebraska owned computer you may request a copy of LabVIEW for OSX. If you are a student and use an Apple computer you have two options to use the NI software:

  1. Virtualization using tools such as1:
  2. Dual booting with a BootCamp configuration: Apple Support2

1: Here’s more information about performance using National Instruments tools with virtualization.
2: Keep in mind that students can obtain a Windows license from the UNL Computer Store at a greatly reduced cost.

National Instruments Software included in the licensing agreement

Core Engineering
Measurements & Data Management
Controls & Robotics
Real-time & Embedded
Signal Processing & Communications