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

Chapter 15. Bootstrapping Prerequisites with Burn

If you're like most of us, your software relies on some framework, third-party component, database, or process. Maybe it's the .NET Framework, the Java runtime, or SQL Server. Up until now, we would use a launch condition to show the user a friendly error message if the required prerequisite wasn't found, swiftly ending our installation. What we needed is a bootstrapper—a mechanism for getting those prerequisites installed prior to installing our own software. With the arrival of WiX 3.6, we have one.

Burn is a new tool in the WiX arsenal that fills the bootstrapper gap, but its feature set extends well beyond that of a simple bootstrapper. In this chapter, we'll cover the following topics:

  • The ins and outs of getting your prerequisites installed using the new Bootstrapper Project template available in Visual Studio

  • Displaying a single progress bar while installing multiple installation packages

  • Downloading installers from the Internet at runtime...