The PXI Express specification allows many combinations of PXI Express chassis and system modules. To assist system integrators, the manufacturers of PXI Express 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 PXIe-1095 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 PXIe-1095 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 Express specification at www.pxisa.org.