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

Tying a custom action to the custom element


Having a table full of rows in the MSI gets us halfway. The other half is defining a custom action that reads from that table and does something useful with the data at install time. The extensions that come with WiX already do all sorts of handy things, such as create SQL databases and tables, edit XML files, add users and set permissions, add websites to IIS, and so on. Your extension will add to this list, allowing an installer to do new, uncharted things! However, in this example we'll keep it simple and only display a message box for each row in the SuperElementTable table.

This is going to be a three-step process. First, we'll define the custom action in C#. Then, we'll embed the custom action DLL inside a WiX library (.wixlib). Finally, we'll embed that library inside our extension. In the same Visual Studio solution where we defined our extension, add a new project using the C# Custom Action Project template. Call it SuperElementActions...