Upgrading Windows 10 on PXIe-8880

[ejesse]

I've got a PXIe-8880 with Windows 10, version 1703 on it. Windows has been trying to upgrade for a while now to the latest version (currently 21H1), but has always failed. At about 48% through the update process, the update blue screens with error NMI_HARDWARE_FAILURE, after which it resets things and stays at 1703.

I've always been assuming something by NI has been preventing the upgrade, but a recent conversation with tech support has me reconsidering this assumption. So two questions:

1. Is the PXIe-8880 (or others) version locked to a certain build of Windows 10? Is there any reason to suspect that this upgrade failure is somehow intentional by NI and bad things would happen if an upgrade occurred? Or should the PXIe-8880 be updating to the latest Windows 10 builds as they come out (or at some delayed rate, but still regularly)? I've been unable to find any information about this online one way or the other.

2. If the PXIe-8880 is NOT version locked as per question 1, what could be preventing Windows from updating in my case? Any suggestions? I've tried just about everything suggested on the web (updating drivers, removing non-essential RAIDs in my chassis, etc.) with no success.

[ejesse · Accepted solution]

For the sake of posterity:

I finally got in touch with tech support about this issue, and got my PXIe to update. Turns out I needed to remove ALL modules/components from the chassis, not just the "non-essential raids" (remove with the system powered off, of course). So in the end, the only thing loaded into the chassis was the PXIe-8880 controller; all other slots were empty. After doing that, the update went smoothly. So no version lock by NI, but the other modules were the cause of the failed upgrade.

Regarding an update schedule, this was the response I got from tech support:

"For the OS update you can be checking our Roadmap to check how's NI support with the operating systems, and always check our software readme files before updating the OS to confirm that everything is compatible. NI Software Platform Roadmap - NI"

I guess builds are insignificant, and that roadmap should help with any version update questions. Looks like Windows 10 will be supported for a while, with Windows 11 support coming soon.

Hope that this helps somebody other than just me. Happy upgrading!

P.S. If you really want to make sure an update won't break anything, I was told to check the drivers for all the modules as well. Tech support did all this for me, but it looks like you can find what the drivers are by looking at the module's manual/getting started guide/datasheet or simply by searching online. For example, my VST-5840's driver is NI-RFSA, and my installed version was 18.0. If I look up the Readme for NI-RFSA v18.0, I can see it supports Windows 10, which I take (and tech support implied) to mean all versions of Windows 10. I have seen Windows versions occasionally specified, but these are usually minimum versions. Having said all that, I really can't imagine an upgrade being an issue for the drivers. Unless you are making a big jump from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and have some really old driver or something, these driver checks can probably be skipped.

[MKKE]

Spoiler

Yes, it is the only way to get Windows updated or installed. Removed all HW modules. Thanks for sharing this, it helps month long issues got resolved.