Switching Between LabVIEW RT or Windows to Boot My PXI

To take advantage of the determinism and processing benefits from Real-Time, some PXI controllers are capable of booting LabVIEW RT or Windows/Other OS, also known as dual-boot. For a controller to be able to boot in a different Operating System, it must be bought and configured with a dual-boot option. If your PXI does not have this feature, the following steps will not show up in your system. Please note that NI does not plan to support Dual-Boot for NI Linux Real-Time controllers at this time and it is highly recommended to have controllers with just one Operating System loaded to ensure reliability. This article will go through how to switch from Windows to LabVIEW Real-Time or viceversa in your PXI controller.

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1. There are two different ways you can choose which OS to boot into: 
   1. Setting the RT Boot Options in the BIOS through the LabVIEW RT Setup Menu
      • You can enter the BIOS by pressing the Delete <DEL> button upon boot up.
      • If your controller's Boot Configuration is set to Use Switch Setting, then the position of the configuration switch will determine the boot mode of the controller.
      • Setting the Boot Configuration to LabVIEW RT will cause the controller to boot into safe mode regardless of the switch's position
   2. Using the LabVIEW RT Configuration Switches located on the PXI Controller
      • This will only work if your controller's Boot Configuration is set to Use Switch Setting.

Note: In order to install LabVIEW Real-Time onto a PXI Controller preloaded with Microsoft Windows, you need to purchase the LabVIEW Real-Time Deployment License for NI PXI Controllers .

Note: The following controllers have the RT safe mode image built into the BIOS and do not require a separate boot disk for setup and configuration:

• PXI-8101
• PXI-8102
• PXI-8108
• PXI-8109
• PXI-8110
• PXI-8115
• PXI-8119
• PXI-8184
• PXI-8185
• PXI-8186
• PXI-8187
• PXI-8195
• PXI-8196
• PXI-8820
• PXI-8840
• PXIe-8100
• PXIe-8101
• PXIe-8102
• PXIe-8108
• PXIe-8115
• PXIe-8135
• PXIe-8820
• PXIe-8840