Book Image

WiX Cookbook

By : Nicholas Matthew Ramirez
1 (1)
Book Image

WiX Cookbook

1 (1)
By: Nicholas Matthew Ramirez

Overview of this book

WiX is a dialect of XML used to make installers for Windows. Its declarative style avoids the complexity and limitations of procedural code, providing you with everything you need to package up an entire application into a single MSI file. This book gives you a good overview of WiX's capabilities to develop your own installer packages with functionalities beyond those available in Windows Installer. In the recipes of this book, you will see ways in which WiX can cut down on your installation time and help you streamline your deployment processes. You will see how to make customized installer UIs, write custom actions, create shortcuts, and also set your application as the default for a file type.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
14
Index

Creating a table within a SQL Server database

After creating a database on the end user's computer, you'll want to define its schema by adding table definitions. WiX gives us a way to execute CREATE TABLE statements within the database that we're installing. In this recipe, we will add a table definition with a few basic fields.

Getting ready

Create a new setup project and name it NewTableInstaller.

How to do it...

To create a table, add a SqlString element that specifies the CREATE TABLE SQL statement:

  1. Add SqlExtension to the project by right-clicking on the References node in Solution Explorer and selecting OK after navigating to Add Reference... | Browse | WixSqlExtension.dll | Add.
  2. Add the SqlExtension namespace to the Wix element:
    <Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi" 
    xmlns:sql="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/SqlExtension">
  3. Add a Component that has its KeyPath attribute set to yes. It should contain a SqlDatabase element so that a...