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

Creating a multi-language MSI


In addition to being able to create multiple separate MSIs for each language, it's also possible to create a single MSI that shows a different language depending on the end user's language settings. The process is automatic for the user. They don't need to choose the language.

Note

Note that the procedure you'll learn here isn't supported by Microsoft, but is widely used.

To get started, build separate MSIs for each language. For a simple example, add a project reference to WixUIExtension. Then add a UIRef element to your markup to reference one of the standard dialog sets and set Cultures to Build in Visual Studio to es-es;en-us;de-de. This will build Spanish, English, and German installers using the .wxl files that are embedded in WixUIExtension. This is depicted in the following screenshot:

Build the project. Visual Studio, by default, sends the output of each localized MSI to its own folder.

Each folder contains an MSI for a different language. To merge these...