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

Candle.exe


Candle, the WiX compiler, can be run from the command line to build your WiX source files (.wxs). Behind the scenes, Visual Studio is really just calling this tool for you. Compiling a WiX source file creates a WiX object file (.wixobj). These are later processed by Light, the WiX linker/binder, to create the final MSI. A simple example of using Candle would be where we simply pass it the path to a .wxs file:

"%WIX%bin\candle" Product.wxs

This will compile the Product.wxs file that's in the current directory and create an object file called Product.wixobj. I've used the %WIX% environment variable that expands to C:\Program Files (x86)\WiX Toolset v3.6\. This variable is available after you've installed WiX. The candle.exe file is located in the WiX bin directory, though, so we need to include that folder in the path.

Note

To make accessing the WiX command-line tools easy, you should consider adding %WIX%bin to your PATH environment variable. Right-click on Computer in your Start...