Question: I'm using the same code that is still working for a new version of equipment the company the bought. 

I can't communicate with the equipment in vb in visual studio (the language of the last code I wrote). But I can make a simple code in LabVIEW to see if the equipment is communicating and it is.

So, my question is what code is labview sending to the equipment?
The only thing I see from the LabVIEW GUI is `*IDN?\n`

Is that the same as what I writing? 

`mySerialport.WriteLine("*idn?" + Chr(10))`

Answer: 
```
*IDN?\n

```

is not the same as :

```
mySerialport.WriteLine("*idn?" + Chr(10))

```

The former is capitalized while the later is not and it may cause an issue depending on the instrument.

You are using the serial port, so the most important thing to consider is the baud rate. It is possible that the later model equipment your company purchased has a different baud rate to the one that was used previously. 

If you want to see exactly the data that LabVIEW is sending, you can use NI IO Trace or a non NI serial port monitor such as listed [here](https://thecodeisbroken.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/portmon-i-forgot-about-you/)
As SeanJ pointed out \*IDN?\n is not the same as "idn?". Further, make sure that space character in your calling method is visible. Sometimes machines require you to manually type "\r\n" for complete carriage return.