How can I sort file sequence in WiX? - wix

Question

AFAIK file sequence in File table(in MSI file) has effect on the time needed for un/installation: if file entries that have the same target directory are placed in sequence in File table the installer takes less time doing un/installation than when those files are scattered in the File table.
But, it seems that my installer built from my wix project is in the latter case. It has its file entries that have the same target directory scattered in the File table. Is there any way to sort these file entries so that they are placed in sequence in the File table? (My .wxs file was generated by heat.exe)
Thank you.

Answer 1

Heat tool provides the ability to run a custom XSLT transformation at the end of the heating. This is a very powerful feature, because it gives you a way to do anything you want with the result. For example, the following XSL will change file IDs to a concatenation of all parent folders + file name.
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl"
xmlns:wix="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi"
xmlns:my="my:my">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" />
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:template match="#*|node()">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="#*|node()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match='wix:File'>
<xsl:variable name='fileId'>
<xsl:value-of select="/wix:Wix/wix:Fragment/wix:DirectoryRef/#Id"/>_<xsl:value-of select="translate(substring-after(#Source, '\'), '\- ', '_')"/>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="#*"/>
<xsl:attribute name="Id">
<xsl:value-of select="$fileId"/>
</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match='wix:Directory'>
<xsl:variable name='parentPath'>
<xsl:for-each select='ancestor::wix:Directory/#Name'>
<xsl:value-of select="concat(.,'_')"/>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="#*"/>
<xsl:attribute name="Id">
<xsl:value-of select="/wix:Wix/wix:Fragment/wix:DirectoryRef/#Id"/>_<xsl:value-of select="translate($parentPath, '- ', '__')"/><xsl:value-of select="translate(#Name, '- ', '__')"/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
This approach does not quarantee uniqueness of IDs but works pretty well for me.

Answer 2

There is nothing built into the WiX toolset to sort in a particular way. However, if you have empirical evidence that shows a better sorting algorithm should be used then that would be a good thing to send to the wix-devs#lists.sourceforge.net mailing list. The WiX toolset should do the best optimization automatically.
HACK: You can try sorting your File/#Id alphabetically to control the order in current releases of the WiX toolset. This may or may not work in all versions of the WiX toolset.