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

Summary


In this chapter, we talked about the meaning of launch conditions and how they can be used to prevent an install on a system that doesn't meet the minimum requirements you've set. When paired with AppSearch or the built-in Windows Installer properties, launch conditions are able to detect the operating system, .NET version, and whether or not required software is installed.

We touched on feature and component conditions and how they allow you to exclude a specific feature or component from the install. These conditions take the decision out of the hands of the end user and lets you have the final say. You saw that using feature conditions to set Level to 0 will completely remove a feature from a feature tree list. You may prefer to use the ADDLOCAL property instead or change the feature's level to a number higher than INSTALLLEVEL to disable it without hiding it.

Towards the end, we discussed what action and installed state is. An action state can't be used in feature and component...