Chapter 2
Installation and Configuration
©
National Instruments Corporation
2-11
NI PXI-1042 Series User Manual
Using System Configuration and Initialization Files
The PXI specification allows many combinations of PXI chassis and
system modules. To assist system integrators, the manufacturers of PXI
chassis and system modules must document the capabilities of their
products. The minimum documentation requirements are contained in
.ini
files, which consist of ASCII text. System integrators, configuration
utilities, and device drivers can use these
.ini
files.
The capability documentation for the PXI-1042 Series chassis is contained
in the
chassis.ini
file on the software media that comes with the
chassis. The information in this file is combined with information about
the system controller to create a single system initialization file called
pxisys.ini
(PXI System Initialization). The system controller
manufacturer either provides a
pxisys.ini
file for the particular chassis
model that contains the system controller or provides a utility that can
read an arbitrary
chassis.ini
file and generate the corresponding
pxisys.ini
file. System controllers from NI provide the
pxisys.ini
file for the PXI-1042 Series chassis, so you should not need to use the
chassis.ini
file. Refer to the documentation provided with the system
controller or to
ni.com/support
for more information on
pxisys.ini
and
chassis.ini
files.
Device drivers and other utility software read the
pxisys.ini
file to
obtain system information. The device drivers should have no need to
directly read the
chassis.ini
file. For detailed information regarding
initialization files, refer to the PXI specification at
www.pxisa.org
.
