Can I install Windows XP on a PXI-8170?

[JamesW]

I have a PXI-8170 conrtoller in a PXI-1000B chassis (196MB RAM). Currently it's running LabVIEW 5.1 on Windows NT 4. Is it possible to upgrade the OS to Windows XP (as then I can upgrade to LabVIEW 7)? Are there any problems I should be aware of?

[AndrewM]

James,

As far as the hardware requirements go, your system should run XP without a problem. The only issues that you might run into are the peripheral drivers. The peripherals download page has drivers for Windows 2000 and those should work with XP. I do not think that you will have any issues with 2000 drivers on XP.

http://ni.com/support/vxi/vxi_perph.htm#pxi8170

Regards,

Andrew M
National Instruments

[JamesW]

Just to check though, the PXI8170 doesn't support USB in the BIOS does it? So I can't use a bootable CD from a USB drive? So to install XP can I boot from a floppy, then access an image of the XP CD on the hard drive?

[AndrewM]

James,

You are correct, the BIOS of the 8170 does not allow for bootable USB devices. The easiest path to upgrade would be to copy the entire contents of an installation CD to a folder on the hard drive, boot into DOS from a floppy and then run winnt.exe from the i386 folder, which starts a CD-less installation.

Regards,

Andrew M
National Instruments

[JamesW]

Andrew,

Unfortunately Windows XP does not recognise any of the Windows 2000 drivers. We'd like to have XP, any suggestions?

James.

[Anonymous]

The drivers for Windows 2000 are not recognised by Windows XP.

[Anonymous]

James,

At this point, I would try looking at the webpage for the individual
part manufacturer and see if they have a Windows XP driver.

AndrewM
National Instruments

[Paul DeGroot]

The most up to date drivers are found at
http://www.asiliant.com/driver.htm
Use the Windows XP {DTD 10/03} for normal applications.
I use the above XP drivers and it works great!

If you want to try the dual head option, use Windows XP Dual View.