I'm building an installer using WiX and I want all my installer's dialogs to be larger than the default dimensions. Is there a central spot where I can set a width and height for all dialogs in my installer? If not, is there at least a way to change the built-in dialogs' dimensions?
In WiX v3.6 you can use localization files to change size and location of dialogs and controls. See my blog post for details. It's still a lot of work to change everything.
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I am trying to install a WiX managed bootstrapper setup .I have written a custom logic to calculate the size occupied .Is there any way to supress the default size shown by WiX in control panel entry.
You can use the ARPSIZE property to set your preferred install size in case Windows is computing this value incorrectly.
<Property Id='ARPSIZE'>app size in kilobytes</Property>
ARPSIZE seems to be superfluous at first sight. However, testing shows that Programs and Features reports a completely bogus value (over 4 GB) for very small packages. In this case, providing the package size manually can help overcome this annoying but harmless nuisance.
https://www.firegiant.com/wix/tutorial/com-expression-syntax-miscellanea/add-or-remove-programs-entries/
More info about ARPSIZE: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/msi/arpsize
WiX. I use WixUI_Mondo. Can I increase this Window size?
Short answer is yes.
Long answer is that you will need to grab the wix source for the dialogs used within the WixUI_Mondo UI and modify the sizes of all the windows.
Here is the link to the WixUI_Mondo wxs file. You can see the DialogRefs used for this UI set. You can go up one level in git to look at the wixlib files and see that each DialogRef has its own wxs file defining the dialog itself. You'll need to copy the contents of each dialog ref into their own wxs files within your wixproj installer project and then you can modify the sizes of each dialog and realign some UI elements if needed. If you still need the WixUIExtension, you'll need to change the names of each dialog and the UI to not conflict with the defined UI and dialogs in the extension.
You can use localization files to change the dimensions of a control or dialog.
I feel that the dialogs provided by the WixUIExtension have a look that remembers me of Windows 95.
Example screenshot from an example of the WiX Tutorial built with WiX 3.10 (*cough* on Win 7):
(I know how to replace the bitmaps.) The icons (disks, folders) have 16 colors, text boxes and combo boxes look quite old.
Maybe I missed something obvious.
Is there a way to give these dialogs a slightly more modern look without rewriting them from scratch?
You can replace the bitmaps and icons but the controls and their appearance are part of MSI and can't be changed. That's one of the reasons I use Burn bundles even when I don't have a chain -- it requires coding but the UI can be completely controlled.
In WiX 3.9 and earlier, there was no way to customize the message that WixStdBA shows when the operation completed. I see that bugs 4149 and 4604 have been resolved as fixed. Which version of WiX are these fixes available in, and how do I use this new functionality?
In WiX v3.10.0.1403, support was added for specifying different strings for success/failure of install/repair/uninstall. If you're using the builtin theme and localization file, then you get the new strings automatically. Otherwise, look at the pull request to see what was added to the builtin themes and localization files and put them in your customized files.
In WiX v4.0.2603.0, breaking changes were made to the schema of theme files. As part of that change, the Text element was renamed to Label and the new Text element allows conditionally setting the text of a control. In WiX v4.0.2926.0, the builtin themes and localization files were updated to show the same text as v3.10 does. Take a look at that commit to see how that functionality was added.
I've noticed that the articles, tutorials and samples of creating the custom dialogs in Wix always use the same dialog size - Width="370" Height="270"(in the installer units) which corresponds to 494px * 360px for 96DPI. The example is http://blogs.technet.com/b/alexshev/archive/2008/10/16/from-msi-to-wix-part-20-user-interface-required-dialog-boxes.aspx
Moreover, a lot of MSI installers use exactly this size for the dialogs. I wonder where this size value came from? Is there any guideline about the installer dialog size?
These standard values for MSI UI dialogs come from Windows SDK, the uisample.msi file.
This size is close to the standard wizard Wizard interface, and MSI “Wizards” mimic Wizard '97 UI. See Wizard '97 sample image, the size of the image is 513 × 397 px.
If there's anything special about it, it likely hails from a size that looked good on a default Windows 95 or so taskbar configuration with a screen resolution of 640x480 pixels. Realistically you can use other sizes, such as Visual Studio's installation which is much larger.