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

Setting language and code page attributes


When you localize your MSI package, you'll need to alter your Product and Package elements to suit. To do so, you'll leverage code pages and locale identifiers (LCIDs). So the first thing to do is define what we mean by these terms.

A locale identifier is an ID used to classify a particular language and the region where it's spoken. It serves the same purpose as an IETF language tag, such as "en-us", but is formatted as a number. For example, "1033" means English as spoken in the United States. A full chart of LCIDs can be found at Microsoft's MSDN web site by searching for locale ID. The URL is:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb964664.aspx

Although that page also provides LCIDs in hexadecimal form, you should always use the decimal form in WiX.

A code page is an add-on of extra printable characters that aren't covered in the basic set of 128 ASCII characters. I might as well break the news that WiX does not use Unicode. It has to do with...