This depends on a number of things, but mainly if/how the driver and the hardware implement device locking. You can try this - when connected to the instrument using the VXIPnP or IVI driver, create a new VISA object with the resource name of the hardware. FOPEN this and send SCPI commands to the instrument and see if you get errors.
Generally I would not recommend this approach as sending SCPI commands directly while also connected to it using the IVI driver, or even with an external application, might change the settings on the instrument and the driver may not be able to communicate with the instrument as it is not in the state the driver expects it to be in.
