Since Rob Mensching offered up the WiX toolset as the first open source project from Microsoft in 2004, it has been quietly gaining momentum and followers. Today, thousands use it to build Windows Installer packages from simple XML elements. Gone are the days when you would have had to pay for software to build an installer for you. Now, you can do it yourself for cheap.
Not only that, but WiX has matured into a fairly slick product that's sufficiently easy to use. Best of all, it has all of the bells and whistles you want including the functionality to add user interface wizards, Start Menu shortcuts, control Windows services, and read and write to the Registry.
WiX: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML gives you the knowledge to start building sophisticated installers right away, even if you have no prior experience doing so. Each chapter gets straight to the point, giving you hands on experience, so you'll master the technology quickly.
Chapter 1, Getting Started, explains how after downloading and installing the WiX toolset, you'll start using it right away to create a simple installer. Then, you'll see how to add a basic user interface to it, install it with logging turned on, and view its internal database.
Chapter 2, Creating Files and Directories, gives you deeper understanding of how files are installed and what is the best way to organize them in your project. You'll then use the tool heat.exe to generate WiX markup. Last, you'll learn about copying and moving files, and installing special-case files.
Chapter 3, Putting Properties and AppSearch to Work, gets you introduced to Windows Installer properties as you create your own and use those that are built in. Later, you'll check the end user's computer for specific files, directories, Registry keys, and INI file settings using AppSearch.
Chapter 4, Improving Control with Launch Conditions and Installed States, allows you to leverage conditional statements to set prerequisites for running your installer and to exclude particular features or components from the install. You'll also discover how to check the action and installed state of your features and components.
Chapter 5, Understanding the Install Sequence, allows you to get a clear picture of how the whole installation process works as you examine the order and meaning of installer actions. You will then create custom actions and add them to this built-in sequence to extend the functionality. Then, you'll learn the basics of using the Deployment Tools Foundation library for writing custom action code in C#.
Chapter 6, Adding a User Interface, after giving you a quick introduction to the standard dialog wizards that come with the WiX toolset, allows you to start building your own from scratch. You'll learn all of the required elements to display dialogs and to link them together. You'll also see how to build dialogs for displaying errors and user exits.
Chapter 7, Using UI Controls, gives you hands on experience with each type of UI control including buttons, textboxes, and progress bars.
Chapter 8, Tapping into Control Events, breathes life into your UI controls by having them publish and subscribe to events.
Chapter 9, Working from the Command Line, compiles your code from the command line and then links and binds object files into an MSI. You'll learn to use preprocessor variables and conditional statements and how to create custom preprocessor extensions.
Chapter 10, Accessing the Windows Registry,allows you to read from the Windows Registry and add keys and values to it at install time. You'll also learn how to remove existing keys, copy values, and set permissions.
Chapter 11, Controlling Windows Services, installs Windows services and issues start, stop, and remove commands to them. You'll learn to set the service's user account, add service dependencies, and set failure recovery.
Chapter 12, Localizing Your Installer, creates localized installers for different languages and teaches how light.exe, the WiX linker, plays a role. You'll then learn how to make a single multi-language installer.
Chapter 13, Upgrading and Patching, allows you to learn how to plan for and implement a major upgrade of your product and how to make small updates using patch files.
In order to both write and run the code demonstrated in this book, you will need the following:
Visual Studio 2005 or newer (Standard edition or higher)
The WiX toolset, which can be downloaded from http://wix.codeplex.com/
If you are a developer and want to create installers for software targeting the Windows platform, then this book is for you. You'll be using a lot of XML so that you get accustomed to the basics of writing well-formed documents, using XML namespaces and the dos and don'ts of structuring elements and attributes. You should know your way around Visual Studio, at least enough to compile projects, add project references, and tweak project properties. No prior knowledge of Windows Installer or WiX is assumed.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."
A block of code is set as follows:
<Component Id="CMP_MyProgramEXE"
Guid="E8A58B7B-F031-4548-9BDD-7A6796C8460D">
<File Id="FILE_MyProgramEXE"
Source="MyProgram.exe"
Name="NewName.exe"
KeyPath="yes" />
</Component>When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
File Id="FILE_MyProgramEXE"
Source="$(var.FilesPath)MyProgram.exe"
KeyPath="yes" />Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
Light.exe -loc en-us.wxl -loc en-us2.wxl -loc de-de.wxl -cultures:en-us "*.wixobj" -out myInstaller.msi
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Use the Add Reference option in your Solution Explorer".
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