Chapter 3
NI-VXI Software Installation and Configuration
© National Instruments Corporation
3-5
VXI-AT2000/NI-VXI MS-DOS Getting Started
Installing the Software
The NI-VXI distribution disks that came with your AT-MXI contain the NI-VXI files as well as
an
INSTALL
program. The
INSTALL
program is used to install the entire NI-VXI software
package, a software update, or to reinstall software in the event that your files were accidentally
erased. Follow these steps to install all or part of the NI-VXI software.
1. The NI-VXI software requires approximately 2 MB of free space on your hard disk. Create
the necessary free space on the hard disk before starting the installation.
2. Run
INSTALL.EXE
on distribution disk 1.
INSTALL
is a text-based, interactive,
self-guiding program, which will install all the necessary files (for a complete or partial
installation, as user-specified) on the hard disk. In addition, it will optionally modify the
AUTOEXEC.BAT
initialization file accordingly. The program prompts you to enter the
following information.
•
Whether to install NI-VXI for DOS: If you need to add only a certain component (for
example, QuickBASIC) but already have the NI-VXI package installed, you can respond
No
. The default is to install the DOS applications.
•
Languages to install: You can choose whether to install the Microsoft C, Borland C,
and/or QuickBASIC libraries. The default is to install all of them, but if you are using
only one compiler, you can select only that compiler.
•
Source drive: This is the floppy drive in which you inserted the distribution disks.
•
Destination directory: This is the complete pathname of the directory where you want to
install the software.
•
Modifying DOS initialization files: You can choose whether
INSTALL
modifies the
AUTOEXEC.BAT
file to reflect the location of the NI-VXI library. If you choose to let
INSTALL
do this, you must also enter the drive where
AUTOEXEC.BAT
can be found.
If
INSTALL
detects a previous installation of the NI-VXI software, it will prompt you to
determine whether to delete or overwrite the previous version, or to provide an alternate path
in which to install the new version.
Note:
INSTALL
will not create a backup for you. If there are files you want to
preserve, be sure to exit the installation program at this time and make a backup
before continuing.
You can quit the
INSTALL
program at any time by choosing Exit from the initial screen, or
by pressing <Control-C> once installation has begun.
INSTALL
will prompt you to be
certain you really want to quit at that time. If you choose to run the
INSTALL
program
again, it starts over and recopies all the necessary files. Of course, if you made any changes
from the default configuration, you will need to specify those changes once again.
As mentioned previously,
INSTALL
optionally modifies the
AUTOEXEC.BAT
file. If you
do modify it,
INSTALL
changes the old file's extension to
.BAK
and keeps it for safety
purposes. If you do not modify it,
INSTALL
creates a file in the NI-VXI directory with the
changes it proposes you make to the file, and names it
AUTOEXEC.VXI
.
