PacktLib: WiX: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML

WiX: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML

About the Author

About the Reviewer

Getting Started

Introducing Windows Installer XML

Your first WiX project

Adding a User Interface

Viewing the MSI database

Turning logging on during installation

Other resources

Creating Files and Directories

DirectoryRef element

ComponentGroup element

Fragment element

Harvesting files with heat.exe

Copying and moving files

Installing special-case files

Creating an empty folder

Setting file permissions

Speeding up file installations

Putting Properties and AppSearch to Work

Custom properties

Predefined Windows Installer properties

Improving Control with Launch Conditions and Installed States

Installed state

Understanding the Installation Sequence

InstallUISequence

InstallExecuteSequence

Rollback custom actions

Accessing properties in a deferred action

Adding conditions to custom actions

Deployment Tools Foundation

Adding a User Interface

WiX standard dialog sets

Creating your own dialogs

ICE20 revisited

Using UI Controls

Tapping into Control Events

Publish element

Subscribe element

Subscribe events

Working from the Command Line

Compile-time variables

Conditional statements and iterations

Link-time variables

Building an installer without Visual Studio

Accessing the Windows Registry

Reading from the Registry

Writing to the Registry

Removing Registry values

Copying Registry values

Registry permissions

Controlling Windows Services

Creating a simple Windows service

Starting, stopping, and uninstalling a service

Setting the service's user account

Adding service dependencies

Service recovery with Util:ServiceConfig

Localizing Your Installer

Setting language and code page attributes

WiX localization files

The role of Light.exe

Localizing error messages

Localizing the EULA

Creating a multi-language MSI

Upgrading and Patching

Planning for updates