{"id":2393,"date":"2006-03-15T21:13:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-15T21:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/heaths\/2006\/03\/15\/building-with-wix-targets\/"},"modified":"2006-03-15T21:13:00","modified_gmt":"2006-03-15T21:13:00","slug":"building-with-wix-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/building-with-wix-targets\/","title":{"rendered":"Building with Wix.Targets"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been away for a while working on a high priority issue that I’ll discuss in detail soon, as well as investigating a common issue regarding 32- and 64-bit installations about which I’ll write a new series of posts. For much of that work I’ve been using Windows Installer XML, or WIX<\/a>, which allows me to build Windows Installer packages, merge modules, and patches (actually, just the .pcp<\/i> files as input to PatchWiz.dll<\/i>) using XML with support for preprocessor directives. You can find out more about WIX at http:\/\/wix.sourceforge.net\/<\/a>, as well as from Rob Mensching’s blog<\/a>, who is the creator and “benevolent dictator<\/a>” of WIX.<\/p>\n

More recent distributions<\/a> starting with build 2.0.3719.0 will include a file named wix.targets<\/i>, which is a file you can include into an MSBuild<\/a> project. MSBuild uses XML configuration files, similar to Ant<\/a> and all its variants like NAnt<\/a>, to build projects. You can import .Targets<\/i> files<\/a> (extension is meaningless, really) using the <Import><\/code><\/a> element and take advantage of the properties, tasks, and more that are imported. The wix.targets<\/i> file defines several new tasks that correspond to candle.exe<\/i> and light.exe<\/i>, the compiler and linker in WIX, respectively.<\/p>\n

At the top of the wix.targets<\/i> file is a target named CheckRequiredProperties. That makes sure that you’ve specified both an OutputName and an OutputType property, as shown below:<\/p>\n

<PropertyGroup>
    <OutputName>Example<\/OutputName>
    <OutputType>package<\/OutputType>
<\/PropertyGroup><\/font><\/p>\n

This will create a file names Example.msi<\/i>. After defining those properties you must import the wix.targets<\/i> file:<\/p>\n

<Import Project=”wix.targets”\/><\/font><\/p>\n

Then it’s just a matter of calling the targets defined in wix.targets<\/i>, such as Build, which will set up, compile, and link. That didn’t work, though. The call to candle.exe<\/i> was missing an input file. I couldn’t find any more required properties and I’m still trying to learn MSBuild, since after using NAnt for so long I wasn’t all too familiar with what was yet needed. I read the skimpy documentation and searched the Internet, but found nothing useful (one reason I’m posting this). So I talked to my colleague who has been working on MSBee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Craig<\/a> pointed out that the input @(Compile)<\/code> was needed and that I could use an <ItemGroup><\/code> to define input source files. So, the final MSBuild project file that would compile Example.wxs<\/i> and link the output as Example.msi<\/i> would look like the following:<\/p>\n

<Project DefaultTargets=”All” xmlns=”http:\/\/schemas.microsoft.com\/developer\/msbuild\/2003″>
    <PropertyGroup>
        <OutputName>Example<\/OutputName>
        <OutputType>package<\/OutputType>
    <\/PropertyGroup>
    <Import Project=”wix.targets”\/>
    <ItemGroup>
        <Compile Include=”Example.wxs”\/>
    <\/ItemGroup>
    <Target Name=”All” DependsOnTargets=”Build”\/>
<\/Project><\/font><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been away for a while working on a high priority issue that I’ll discuss in detail soon, as well as investigating a common issue regarding 32- and 64-bit installations about which I’ll write a new series of posts. For much of that work I’ve been using Windows Installer XML, or WIX, which allows me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":3843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-2393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-installation"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

I’ve been away for a while working on a high priority issue that I’ll discuss in detail soon, as well as investigating a common issue regarding 32- and 64-bit installations about which I’ll write a new series of posts. For much of that work I’ve been using Windows Installer XML, or WIX, which allows me […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}