WiX example with automatic file discovery via Heat

Getting started

• Download the "recommended build" of the "WiX Toolset build tools" from https://wixtoolset.org/releases/ . (You can ignore all the Visual Studio stuff.)

• Install it and make sure it's on your Windows path.

Customizing the example

You only have to do these steps once, to set up an installation configuration for your project.

• Download the package.wxs file from this repo, and place it in a new folder on your machine.

• Alongside package.wxs, place the folder that contains the files you want to package (just as if you were going to package it into a .zip). It doesn't matter what you name it, because that name will not be seen by your users. In the example, I'm just calling it MyFolder.

• Edit package.wxs and replace all the {{braces stuff}} with actual values (and don't include the braces in the final file).

  • These are mostly self-explanatory (like the name of the program or publisher or whatever).

  • A few of them ask for a {{GUID}}. You have to generate a fresh new GUID for each place that this occurs (so there will be several distinct GUIDs in the finished file). If you have Python installed, the simplest way to generate a GUID is probably python -c "import uuid;print(uuid.uuid4())"

  • Two of them ask for a {{ID of your binary}}. You'll need to skip these for now. You'll figure out the correct value in the next section.

Building your package

Do this every time you've got a new build that you want to package up into an installer. Except where otherwise stated, just run these commands verbatim.

• heat.exe dir MyFolder -cg AllFiles -o files.wxs -ag -gg -scom -sreg -sfrag -srd -dr INSTALLFOLDER -var var.AllFilesDir (replacing MyFolder with the name of the folder where you put your files)

• Copy the ID of your .exe file into your package, as follows:

  • Open up the files.wxs file that was created in the previous step.

  • Search for the name of your .exe file (the one that you want the installer to create a launcher shortcut for).

  • You should see the filename in a Source="…" attribute, and on the same line you should see something like File Id="blahblah". The blahblah (without the quotes) is what you want. That's your ID.

  • Go back to package.wxs and put this ID into both of the {{ID of your binary}} placeholders. Remove the {{braces}} but keep the # symbol.

  • Like everything in the "Building your package" section, you'll need to redo this step every time you change your package contents. The rest of the package.wxs steps in the "Customizing the example" section only need to be done once, but this one needs to be done every time.

• candle.exe package.wxs files.wxs -dAllFilesDir=MyFolder (again replacing MyFolder with the name of the folder where you put your files))

• light.exe package.wixobj files.wixobj -o MyInstaller (replacing MyInstaller with the name you want for your .msi file)

  • This last step will probably give you some warnings about packages and components, and maybe about fonts. They seem to be harmless.