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.
I have a solution file in TFS, located at $/Library/Library.sln, containing the binary files (.dlls) of other built solutions in TFS. Within this Library solution, there is a .dll taken from $/MySQL/bin/Debug/MySQL.dll which has been generated by building my MySQL solution (located at $/MySQL/MySQL.sln).
Normally after making a change to my MySQL solution I build the solution, check it in to TFS and then copy the resulting .dll into my Library solution at $\Library\MySQL\MySQL.dll. However I’d like this process to be automatic i.e. after checking in a change to the MySQL solution, a build is triggered, and the .dll file generated from this build is automatically placed into the Library solution and then checked into TFS. How would be the best way to achieve this? I imagine gated check-ins are something to do with it but I can’t seem to get it to work.
As Daniel said in the comment, NuGet is the way to go for this. Instead of checking in the binaries to TFS, have your MySQL build publish the binaries to a nuget feed. Then have your Library solution "subscribe" to that NuGet feed.
I'm setting up a CI with TeamCity 8 (v8.1.4).
I finally managed to setup TFS integration - ie checkout from TFS.
I used the super easy Auto Detect Build Steps [thank you JetBrains for that] to determine the Build Steps necessary.
I used the Get missing NuGet packages step, which works as expected.
Then I have a Visual Studio Solution build step, that seems to build great, just until the point where it wants to build the Unit Test and Integration Test projects, which both use Microsoft Fakes.
Here I can see that TeamCity tries to search everywhere for the [AssemblyNameUnderTest].Fakes.dll - where [AssemblyNameUnderTest] is whatever dll that is tested.
I haven't included that dll to my project nor in TFS, since I thought that it would be regenerated each and every time I change something to the original AssemblyNameUnderTest (ClassLibrary) Project.
Should I include the [AssemblyNameUnderTest].Fakes.dlls to the project and TFS or am I right that they are regenerated ?
And if I'm right with the regeneration, then why TeamCity can't find it ?
Thanks in advance,
Michael
Ah, so I found the answer to one of my questions: http://hamidshahid.blogspot.be/2012/11/microsoft-fakes-framework.html
The files in the "Fakes" folder are only generated at the time of
adding the fakes assembly. They are added to the solution and should
be checked into source control.
The "FakesAssemblies" folder and all the files in it are generated
whenever the project is compiled. This is important because if you are
adding fakes for assembly for a changing component, the generation of
FakesAssemblies will ensure that all changes are reflected in the
generated assembly.
So I did that - ie it is the default behaviour.
Above that my .fakes files have the "Fakes" build action, but it still isn't working for TeamCity.
Also, TeamCity uses the MSBuild.EXE from "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\12.0\Bin" for the build.
Anyone a bright idea ?
To fix the build, I removed the Fakes stuff and implemented Moq mocks.
Seems to give you more control of what exactly happens.
A similar question was asked and answered about a year ago, but was either a different issue (everything was in beta) or misdiagnosed. It's located here: MSbuild task fails because "Any CPU" solution is built out of order.
My issue is that I have a wix installer project, and after upgrading to Tfs2010 on monday, the build fails on linking because it can't find the build product of the Wpf application in the project. After some digging, it's because it hasn't been built yet. Building in Vs2010 works as normal. The wix project is set to depend on the Wpf project, and when viewing Project Build Order in the IDE, everything looks as normal.
The problem was originally encountered with only two platform definitions in the solution; x86 and x64. There are also two flavors, Debug and Release, and TFSBuild.proj is set to build all four combinations. There was no occurence of AnyCPU anywhere. Per the referenced question above, I tried changing the Wpf project to use AnyCPU so that it would be built first. At this point, the wix project used the exact configuration and the Wpf project used the flavor with AnyCPU. However, doing so didn't seem to change anything.
I'm using the Tfs2010 RTM, Vs2010 RTM, and the most recent version of Wix, which at the time of this writing is 3.5.1602.0, from 2010-04-02. Anyone else running into this?
2010-04-27: After a fair amount of digging, and reproducing on a cloned VM build machine, I believe I know what's going on and also what's failing, but I don't quite know how to fix it.
The situation is that this bug seems to exhibit symptoms based on pure luck-of-the-draw project ordering in the solution file. It appears as if the solution file will just blindly build the projects in the order they appear, relying on its ability to detect unbuilt references and build them on demand when needed.
In my particular solution file, my Wix project was ordered before my Wpf application project. This resulted in the Wix project being built first, and while the dependency on the Wpf project was detected correctly, the actual MSBuild task was skipped because of the undefined $(BuildProjectReferences) variable I mention a couple of comments down from the main post in this thread. With MSBuild verbosity still on diagnostic, BuildProjectReferences can be seen as undefined building the Wix project, and it can be seen defined as true upon building the Wpf project within the task to build the Wix project. Yet, when tested, it evaluates undefined again, the task is skipped, and the Wix build fails because it can't find the build output of the unbuilt Wpf project.
So bottom line: project dependency is skipped because of bad $(BuildProjectReferences) variable. Interestingly, this variable is present only in the Wix2010.targets file, and not in wix.targets; I guess that's why this is just showing up after I installed Tfs2010 and Vs2010.
The solution: How do I make sure that BuildProjectReferences is passed along correctly to the subsequent MSBuild tasks? Is there something special with variable scoping going on?
2010-09-14: A bug was opened for this issue in the WiX toolset: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=642714&aid=2990231&group_id=105970 and fixed a while ago. Hopefully, this is no longer an issue. If so, please do open a new bug.
To address your comment directly, nothing in my solution has an AnyCPU configuration in their build files. I created the AnyCPU configurations only to test the solution suggested by the thread I linked to in my original post. After it didn't work, I removed the AnyCPU configurations again.
Furthermore, the projects are in the same solution file, however in separate solution folders (interface folder, installer folder) if that matters.
Interestingly enough, I was going to make a small sandbox example so that I could illustrate the problem I was having, however after creating my tiny sample solution, I couldn't get the error to reproduce. This makes me think that perhaps this is a result of using a team project that was upgraded from a Tfs2008 team project rather than one that was created fresh in Tfs2010. I may try branching my project into a new one to test this theory if I can't figure out why the test solution works.
p.s. also, I'm new to stackoverflow--why on earth are comments limited in length if the "answer your own question" workflow is intended only to provide concrete answers?
So I threw the build verbosity up to diagnostic and read through it today, and one line in particular stood out to me:
Task "MSBuild" skipped, due to false condition; ('#(_ProjectReferenceWithConfiguration)'!='' and '$(BuildingInsideVisualStudio)' != 'true' and '$(BuildProjectReferences)' == 'true' and '#(_MSBuildProjectReferenceExistent)' != '') was evaluated as ('..\WpfApp\WpfApp.csproj'!='' and '' != 'true' and '' == 'true' and '..\WpfApp\WpfApp.csproj' != '').
This was seen as my installer project was attempting to build my wpf project since the wpf project is referenced. In particular, for some reason $(BuildProjectReferences) is evaluating to '' when I'm fairly sure it should be 'true'.
However earlier in the log, at the beginning of the MSBuild task for the WpfApp project, I saw this:
Task "MSBuild" (TaskId:15)
...
Initial Properties:
...
BuildProjectReferences = true
So the property was indeed correct up until the beginning of the task, but then was apparently overwritten? I'm sort of unclear as to how these properties get set.
Its a bug, a bug, a bug. I don't know, who is responsible, but here's a working dirty filthy hack:
Open your .sln file in notepad.
Find your wix projects in the list of projects.
Cut them out, and paste them back after all other projects are listed.
Cry in the shower as you try to scrub the dirty off, only to emerge hours later, rubbed raw and still with the stench of filth clinging to you like corpse's skin.
Following Rob Mensching's edit of my original post, it seems that this has indeed been fixed in WiX 3.6.0917.0 at the latest.
I was seeing this problem (wix 3.7 not finding the dependent project output) in my local and TFS builds (for both VS2010 and VS2012).
I finally got around it by setting the msbuild property /m:1 to only use a single build process. I set /m to allow msbuild to figure out how many processes it could use to simultaneously build with.
I faced with a same problem today and find a solution like this:
Open your solution file on notepad the find your setup project and change postProject setting. This will tell msbuild this project should wait another project to build. I don't know why but it is not added by default.
Project("{GUID}") = "MyInstaller", "MyInstallerPath", "{Installer Project GUID}"
ProjectSection(ProjectDependencies) = postProject
{Prebuild Project GUID} = {Prebuild Project GUID}
EndProjectSection
EndProject
'Prebuild Project GUID' is the number on the right of the project that you want to install.
TFS uses a set of properties to control the names of the solutions and configurations to build ( iterate through ). For each combination of solution and configuration it then uses the project dependencies / build order to control the order of the projects getting built. It's possible that your EXE/DLL's are AnyCPU and that your WiX is x86 and that although the WiX has a dependency on the EXE/DLL the x86 is built before your AnyCPU. Or maybe they are even in different solutions so it's kind of hard to tell without looking at your source but that's basically how it works.
What we did is to first report the bug to wix and then we found your question.
We solved the problem on our side by saying that, by default, the wix project will build the references. We updated the file C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX\v3.5\wix2010.targets by setting <BuildProjectReferences>True</BuildProjectReferences> in the project which set the path. So, yes, we have done this manually ; we have reported the bug as well as our fix.
Background:
I always try to ensure the following tenet in my projects:
After a fresh checkout a developer should be able to do all project related tasks with solely the contents of the combined folders.
Obviously, this isn't always possible (e.g. Visual Studio for Windows development). However, I really dislike having to install any third-party libraries or tools that are specific a project like log4net, NHibernate, NUnit, etc. There are number of reasons for this including:
For a given development machine, you may work on several different projects, all which leverage different versions of the same third-party library or tool.
Minimizing the environment setup requirements makes setting up new developers or machines much easier
Facilitates easier maintenance of automated builds
Assumptions/Contraints
I am currently using WiX 3 beta, but if there is way for either 2.0 or 3.0 please respond
I am using Visual Studio 2005
The IDE syntax highlighting is not a requirement.
Question:
Is it possible to avoid local installation of the WiX toolset and use flat files instead? If so, please explain how.
See Also:
First, build your WiX installer:
Create a new WiX Installer Project in Visual Studio 2005.
Build your WiX XML accordingly.
Now, to integrate the WiX toolkit into your source tree:
Copy c:\Program Files\Windows Installer XML v3\bin to a sub-directory in your source tree. I used WiX\bin relative to my .wixproj file.
Copy c:\Program Files\MSBuild\WiX\v3.0\ to a subdirectory in your source tree. I used WiX\v3.0 relative to my .wixproj file.
Either add the following code or replace the line that follows:
<WixTargetsPath Condition=" '$(WixTargetsPath)' == ''>$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\WiX\v3.0\Wix.targets</WixTargetsPath>
With the following lines:
<WixToolPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\WiX\bin\</WixToolPath>
<WixTasksPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\WiX\v3.0\WixTasks.dll</WixTasksPath>
<WixTargetsPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\WiX\v3.0\Wix.targets</WixTargetsPath>
As you can see, the WixToolPath, WixTasksPath and WixTargetsPath directives reflect the location of the folders I've instructed you to copy.
Rename your .wixproj to .csproj. This ensures that Visual Studio does not get confused by the .wixproj file but because the .wixproj is a valid MSBuild project, Visual Studio will be able to work with it.
Using this method, the WiX directory as described is about 9MB large.
I know with WiX 2, you can just download the executable files and the dll's to whatever directory your project is in. Then you create a .bat file to run candle.exe and light.exe with the parameters you need to build your installer.
That way, all your projects can have their own version of WiX with a disk drive hit of only about 4 megs each.
I'm not positive, but I think you can do the same with WiX 3.