Book Image

WiX 3.6: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML

Book Image

WiX 3.6: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML

Overview of this book

The cryptic science of Windows Installer can seem far off from the practical task of simply getting something installed. Luckily, we have WiX to simplify the matter. WiX is an XML markup, distributed with an open-source compiler and linker, used to produce a Windows Installer package. It is used by Microsoft and by countless other companies around the world to simplify deployments. "WiX 3.6: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML" promises a friendly welcome into the world of Windows Installer. Starting off with a simple, practical example and continuing on with increasingly advanced scenarios, the reader will have a well-rounded education by book's end. With the help of this book, you'll understand your installer better, create it in less time, and save money in the process. No one really wants to devote a lifetime to understanding how to create a hassle-free installer. Learn to build a sophisticated deployment solution targeting the Windows platform in no time with this hands-on practical guide. Here we speed you through the basics and zoom right into the advanced. You'll get comfortable with components, features, conditions and actions. By the end, you'll be boasting your latest deployment victories at the local pub. Once you've finished "WiX 3.6: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML", you'll realize just how powerful and awesome an installer can really be.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
WiX 3.6: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

The role of Light.exe


If you've added a .wxl file to your WiX project in Visual Studio, or maybe several .wxl files—perhaps en-us.wxl for English and es-es.wxl for Spanish—building the project will create an installer for each one. They'll be stored in the bin folder under separate subfolders. This is without declaring which languages you want to build for. By default, Visual Studio detects all of the languages you've added and creates an MSI for each one.

The commands used to build the MSIs are the same that you learned about in Chapter 9, Working from the Command Line. First, Visual Studio calls Candle to compile the .wxs source code files into .wixobj object files. Then, it makes a distinct call to Light for each .wxl file, passing the -loc and -cultures flags. The following is the build process, truncated and formatted for readability:

Candle.exe -out obj\Debug\ -arch x86 Product.wxs

Light.exe -out "bin\Debug\en-us\MyInstaller.msi" 
   -cultures:en-us 
   -loc en-us.wxl 
   -loc es-es...