Rather than conditionally including the opening Directory elements (which invalidates the XML), conditionally set preprocessor variables which are used as directory names, as @Daniel Pratt’s comment refers to. Similarly, having a “yes/no” variable conditioned on platform makes it easy to set up 64 bit components, registry searches, etc. Defining the variables (From this answer) <?if … Read more
The overall concept of MSI is that there is a 1:1 mapping between a component GUID (unique identifier) and an absolute path (install location / key path). The full path, including file name if any (a directory can be the key path for a component). See update below for a new Wix feature to deal … Read more
The file extension is a convenience, the content of the file is what really matters. The distinction makes it easier to manage the difference between the actual installation (wxs files) and the properties required to create the installation (wxi files). For example, your wxs files specify the product and its contents (which files you install) … Read more
The easiest way (and Rob M will rant and rave about how this is wrong) is just to use SelfRegCost=1 on the File tag for the DLL. This is wrong, because we should be explicitly controlling the registration of the DLL, not allowing it just to run arbitrary code via DllRegisterServer. The theory being that … Read more
Windows Installer (MSI) uses the following command line arguments to be silent: Silent install or silent major upgrade: msiexec.exe /i foo.msi /qn Silent minor upgrade: msiexec.exe /i foo.msi REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus /qn Silent uninstall: msiexec.exe /x foo.msi /qn Executable path: C:\Windows\system32\msiexec.exe
Unfortunately there’s no way to do a “safe” association with Windows Installer. We just write everything out to the registry and then have a separate component that takes over the system-wide default and is only installed if no other application has already registered itself as the default. With Vista there’s the new “default programs” interface, … Read more
As you already remarked, your nant build script is not using the wixproj file at all. You are mixing two different ways to build a wix setup here: You can use the candle.exe and light.exe command line tools directly. This ignores the .wixproj file. This is what you are doing in your nant build script. … Read more
From: https://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2010/1/26/stackoverflow-what-does-namesourcedir-refer-to/ Honestly, it’s something that we should have hidden from the developer but didn’t. Sorry. The truth of the matter is that the Windows Installer expects the Directory tree to always be rooted in a Directory row where the primary key (Directory/@Id) is “TARGETDIR” and the DefaultDir column (Directory/@Name) is “SourceDir”. During an install, … Read more
One reason for “one file per component” is resiliency. When an application is started, Windows Installer can check whether the keypath of any component is missing. If the keypath is missing, the component is reinstalled/repaired. If a component has multiple files, then only one file can be the keypath. In wix you indicate this by … Read more
End of the story: After fiddling with the permissions of the integration account, DCOM, service activation, etc. without any luck, I finally simply disabled ICE validation in the continuous integration build, while still keeping it in the local build. To disable ICE validation you can set SuppressValidation to true in the .wixproj file: <PropertyGroup> <SuppressValidation>true</SuppressValidation> … Read more