Can someone help me understand how WiX works? I have a directory structure which I would like to create an installer for. I have generated the for the directory structure with heat.exe and when I build the setup project it generates an .msi file but I don't think it installs anything.
Maybe someone can walk me through the steps of generating a .msi installer.
Any advise is appreciated,
Thank you
If you're using Visual Studio:
Install the WiX Toolset V3 Visual Studio plugin.
Install the Wax interactive editor.
Build your project if you haven't already.
Add a new project to the solution containing the project you want to create an installer for.
Choose the template Setup Project for WiX v3.
Name the installer. A personal convention is the name of the project plus ".Setup"
A Product.wxs file will open up. Change the Manufacturer="" value to something like your company name or your name. Keep the file open.
Go to Tools -> WiX Setup Editor
On the left under Root Directory choose InstallFolder
Under Projects to install, choose the project you want to install.
In the red area to the right, you'll see a list of files. These are the output results of your build from step 3.
Click the plus sign next to files you want to copy. They should turn white and change to a Resolved state.
This might look daunting, but you're just telling it what to copy--which would be your project's executable, configs, dll libraries, and images it's dependent upon.
You typically want to copy everything. If there are dll's you know you don't need, it's better to remove them as a dependency from the Visual Studio.
Notice the Product.wxs has changed. It now has the files you checked off in the Setup Editor GUI added to the <Wix><Fragment><ComponentGroup> section. Save that file.
Close the Setup Editor.
Build the setup project you just configured.
Open Windows explorer and go to that project's bin/Debug or bin/Release folder, depending on what mode you built in. There you'll see the .msi that you can copy to where you need.
To make an update, make the necessary changes and then change the version number in that project's Properties -> Application -> Assembly Information. Then also change it in Product.wxs <Wix><Product.Version>. Then just build your setup project again.
Good tutorial here:
http://wix.tramontana.co.hu/
http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/105638/A-quick-introduction-Create-an-MSI-installer-with
They should get you started.
If you learn something about the MSI log that will also help - install the MSI with a command line that includes /L*vx
And "doesn't install anything" should be easy to check - are there are any files installed, or did it create an entry in Programs&Features?
WiX is a language (XML/XSD) that serves as a way of authoring (compiling) Windows Installer (.MSI) databases. WiX doesn't install anything, MSI does.
I maintain an open source project called IsWiX. The concept is simple. IsWiX provides additional WiX project templates (scaffolding) and graphical designers to assist you in creating installer. Then as you gain knowledge of WiX and MSI you can make additional tweaks of the WiX XML by hand and go beyond what IsWiX currently knows how to author.
Here's a video showing how to author, build and test an MSI to deploy an IIS website in a mere 3 minutes.
Update: IsWiX has tutorials now.
After a few 'false starts' trying to learn WiX from online tutorials I noticed that on http://wixtoolset.org/ there is a link to the book "WiX 3.6: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML". You can buy it pretty inexpensively in E-book form from Packt, or also Amazon if you like the easy interface with Kindle.
I found this book to be VERY helpful with every little step regarding the .msi creation process. The book will guide you to create your first .msi in the very 1st chapter! Granted, you have to continue a little more to have a fully functioning .msi, but given the complexity of Wix, this book is terrific. It may not be for the gurus among us, but for those of us who need a little more help to understand the material it's wonderful. I've seen many posts speak to the 'steep learning curve' regarding WiX and it is a complicated process to create a valid .msi, but this book goes a long way toward making that learning curve very bearable.
If you are using the build system 'cmake', then you can use cpack to generate .msi file by setting the cpack generator to wix.
What worked for me best, was this fantastic tutorial video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yf-eDsRrnM
Its best selling points for me was
independent of visual studio version
it describes deploying a .NET (Core) app also
it focuses on what an average app's installer should be capable of (including heat, icon, background image and banner)
you don't have to learn another layer on wix
it gives you good practices on easy package generation and future maintenance
it gives an installer project template which you can reuse: https://github.com/angelsix/youtube/tree/cecd38ea3d5eea11cc75fc0123297ffc3b5e662b/C%23%20General/Windows%20Installer%20Wix%20DotNet%20Core/ConsoleApp1.Installer
Related
I have a folder containing an exe file and a bunch of other files and a couple other folders. I want to be able to either:
A) Package this all into an installer
or
B) Package the exe and the other files into one singular exe file.
From what I've read, I'm not sure how I'd accomplish either of these with WIX, and I'm 99% sure it's not possible with WIX. Before I dismiss the possibility, I'd like to ask experienced people if I'm right or wrong.
If I can't use WIX, Is there a better alternative?
Thanks for all help.
WiX / Burn: WiX / Burn can indeed make MSI installers or setup.exe wrappers, but it is not trivial to use the toolkit for inexperienced people, and if you have never made a setup before there will be a learning curve. WiX quick start tips.
Burn: Burn is the WiX toolkit's bootstrapper / downloader / chainger tool which allows multiple MSI or setup.exe files to be run in sequence. It allows the creation of a setup.exe which wraps all installer components. Not trivial to learn and use.
Commercial Tools: Quick descriptions of commercial tools Advanced Installer, InstallShield, PACE Suite and some other tools can be found here: Brief descriptions of deployment tools.
And a more elaborate presentation: How to create windows installer.
WIX is highly configurable, and therefore requires some overhead to learn, but it is also very well documented, and gives pretty direct access to windows API's, which are also very well documented.
Packing Existing Files
It is 100% possible to package your files + dependencies into an installer with WIX.
There is a tutorial
Building and Packaging
There is also integration with Visual studio, allowing you to build and run WIX as part of your build.
If you are not using visual studio, that is fine, you can package things with WIX directly, here is
Another tutorial
GUI Installer Creators
If you are completely against the idea of creating your own WIX files and learning the tool set, Advanced installer is a pretty vanilla alternative with a nice GUI
If you really are against making any kind of installer, you can also zip everything up and distribute it that way, can possibly automate this using python.
We have a solution, there are about 100 hundred projects in it. And we have around 20 installers which we created with vdproj.
I need to create WiX projects, which would create .msi instead of vdproj. I used dark.exe to generate wxs file out of msi and got binaries out of it.
I successfully created an msi file and everything was good.
But then I started thinking about it. If some of these projects are changed, will those changes be applied to the application after rebuilding of wix project? Or wxs will be referencing the old version and to update it someone will have to rebuild vdproj project to create new msi, then use dark.exe again?
I am sorry for a stupid question, it's my first time using wix and working with installers in general.
Thank you in advance
You've started on the right track. The VDPROJ outputs are .msi files, so using dark to convert those to wxs files is the right thing to do. Now that you have your wxs files (the base source file to build wix deployments), you can do away with the VDPROJ projects in your solution and only update and use the wxs files (I believe WiX has a visual studio project template available as well).
You'll have to update you wxs files with new assemblies or deliverable files as your projects change.
It is better this way then doing a wildcard pickup (something you can't technically do with WiX, anyway) as having explicit control of what goes on the target machine is preferred. I've seen many cases where developers carelessly add a reference as build output that isn't needed, and sometimes that reference cannot be redistributed per the license agreement or other legalities.
It seems like it's still not possible to build .vdproj on a build-server without having Visual Studio installed. However, using Wix seems to be a lot more complicated.
Are there any other options to do the following task:
Visual Studio 2010 Solution with multiple projects (.csproj)
Many loose content files (not inside assemblies)
Installer must be built on Build-server without Visual Studio on it (devenv.exe / devenv.com)
Installer must create Registry keys
Installer must associate file extensions with installed product
Installer must support upgrades (version upgrades)
Installer should be able to register COM components
Installer should be able to pre-JIT assemblies
My goal is:
Effort to maintain installer is low
Minimal changes if new project (assembly) is added to solution
Ideal: no changes if new content files are added to any of the projects
Maybe I just did not get the point with Wix, but including project output (like in .vdproj) seems very complicated.
Any suggestions very much appreciated!
OK I decided to go with Wix. Found out that using Votive it's possible to include project output like in .vdproj (Binaries, Content, Symbols and even Source Code).
If I run into more complicated situations where this isn't sufficient, I could fall back to some kind of harvester (Heat, Paraffin).
See some more Links in comments below (too little reputation to post more than 1 link in this post).
Check out InstallShield 2010 Limited Edition ( Free for Visual Studio 2010 users ). It has pretty much all the functionality that VDPROJ ( being retired btw ) has and supports silent builds. You can get one license for your dev box and one license for your build machine pretty easily.
I have to write an installer and want to use Wix. The documentation on the website is not working and I like learning by example. Does someone know an open source project with good WiX source files, preferable for Wix version 3.0 or 3.5.
SharpDevelop is one of the bigger ones that I know that uses WiX. I also have a project called IsWiX that sits on top of WiX to author Merge Modules. IsWiX uses WiX/IsWiX itself to do it's own installer so there are some examples there. Finally there is a new WiX book out that you might want to purchase and read through.
WiX: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML
TortoiseSVN uses WiX and there is a blog outlining some issue they had.
Edit: TortoiseSVN Blog: On Major Upgrade Problems with WiX
A few Codeplex projects that use Wix:
Wix, of course
SytleCop
TortoiseHg
VisualHg
There's a open source WIX Sample projects available here, which were very helpful in getting me started.
And don't forget to check out the Powerpoint slide(s) in the slides folder.
I found it really valuable in getting me started with WiX compared to the Wix Tutorial on the Wix website or the Packtpub books.
https://github.com/rstropek/Samples/tree/master/WiXSamples
we are looking to automate an MSI generation for a product we are developing. Currently we have MSBuild building out the source to a network location, this is fine for testing but when it comes to releasing the software we will need to wrap it in an MSI.
The software is all .Net bar 1 COM component that will need registered on each machine it gets installed to.
What I was wondering was how to integrate Wix with MSBuild so that a new wix script will get generated along with an MSI that is able to handle fresh and upgrade installs.
Any help with this is very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Brendan
Sure, there are tasks in MS Build that can do all you need to build an MSI from WiX. Can you integrate this on a build / integration server?
Newer builds of Wix actually include a file called "wix.targets", which should get you started.
Also check out these fine articles on the topic:
Building with Wix.Targets (by Heath Stewart)
Wix Target for MSBuild (by Willem Meints)
Automate Releases With MSBuild And Windows Installer XML (by Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi) (Web archive link for archived msdn magazine)
They cover the topic in much more detail and are extremely helpful to get started.
You should download and install Votive. This will create a Visual Studio project file which you can use with MSBuild to create a WiX-based MSI.
There is also a topic in the WiX manual about how to integrate with MSBuild called Using WiX with MSBuild.