Book Image

WiX: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML

Book Image

WiX: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML

Overview of this book

WiX is an open source project and a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. WiX, which is used internally by Microsoft and by many companies around the World, simplifies many of the installation tasks that used to be shrouded in mystery. The tool set provides a command-line environment that you can integrate into your old-style build processes or you can use the newer technology from inside integrated development environments to build your setup packages. You'll find that you understand your installer better, can 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 for any software. This hands-on guide takes the mystery out of Windows Installer by showing how simple XML elements can be leveraged to create a sophisticated install package. By relying on Microsoft standards, you'll be able to use features like Property elements to customize your application's entry in Add/Remove Programs, the Shortcut element to create Start menu shortcuts, and other specialized elements for building upgrade and patch support and more. This book will show you the fundamental ingredients needed to build a professional-grade installer using Windows Installer XML. The initial chapters will introduce you to the set of required elements necessary to build a simple installer. We'll then explore those basic elements in more detail and see how best to use them in the real world.In the ensuing chapters, you'll move on to learn about adding conditions that alter what the user can install, then how to add actions to the install sequence and how to author a user interface. We'll move on to advanced topics such as editing data in the Windows Registry, installing a Windows service, and building your project from the command line. Finally, you'll learn to localize your package for different languages and detect older versions during upgrades. Each chapter uses to-the-point examples to illustrate the best way to use the language.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
WiX: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
Preface
4
Improving Control with Launch Conditions and Installed States
7
Using UI Controls

Writing to the Registry


To write to the Registry, you'll use the RegistryValue element by itself or paired with a RegistryKey element. By itself, RegistryValue can perform simple writes. Writing multiple things to the same place is easier when you use RegistryKey. We'll discuss both of these in the next sections. Writing occurs during the "deferred" stage of the Execute sequence during an action called WriteRegistryValues.

RegistryValue

Writing to the Registry is sort of like installing something on the end user's computer. So, you'll have to place your RegistryValue element inside a Component. This is actually a good thing as it gives you the opportunity to set component-level conditions on the action. You could use this to only write to the Registry if a certain condition is met. Refer back to Chapter 4 for a discussion on component-level conditions.

Just like when you're installing a file, you must mark something inside the component as the KeyPath item. In this case, we can mark the RegistryValue...