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

Turning logging on during installation


If you get into trouble with your installer, it may help to run it with logging turned on. To do so, install your package from a command prompt using msiexec with the arguments /l*v, and the name of a file to write the log to. For example, if you had an installer called myInstaller.msi, you could use this command to write a log during the installation to a file called myLog.txt:

msiexec /i myInstaller.msi /l*v myLog.txt

Every event that occurs during installation will be recorded here. It works for uninstalls too. Simply use the /x argument instead of /i. The log can be pretty helpful, but also very verbose. If your installer fails midway through, you might try searching the log for the text return value 3. This indicates that an action returned a status of failure. Often, you'll also see a specific MSI error code. You can find its meaning by searching for that number in the MSI SDK Documentation help file that comes with WiX.

Note

You can also turn on logging for all MSI packages by editing the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer key in the Windows Registry. This should be used with care though so as not to use too much disk space. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223300 for more information.