guid - Wix generate single component id for entire tree

Question

I am someone with little to no experience with wix and I am trying to support Windows also for the component I am responsible for. I am trying to create merge module for a set of files that my product generates. These files exist in numerous sub directories. I was wondering how I can create a single component ID for all the files in the entire tree. I am not worried about minor upgrades as that is something I am not going to be doing. I am trying to avoid generating numerous GUIDs for each of the file.

Also is there any way I can change the name of the root directory I want the files to be installed. Currently, in our build system the files I want to install end up in a directory name "install". In the wxs file generated by heat it comes up as install. I was wondering if I could change it to the actual product name instead of "install".

Answer 1

Use one file per component - this avoids all sorts of problems (except .NET assemblies spanning multiple files). See the following thread: One file per component or several files per component?

Wix is a great framework for creating installers, but it has a steep learning curve. I strongly recommend you read a few sections of this great, online tutorial: https://www.firegiant.com/wix/tutorial/

If you are a "sample based tinkerer", you can find an even quicker, sample based tour in this article: http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/105638/A-quick-introduction-Create-an-MSI-installer-with

Wix is hands-on. Just focus on the samples, and focus on getting the components created and a major upgrade set up:

• How to implement WiX installer upgrade? (modern, convenience way)
• How to get WiX major upgrade working? (legacy way - more flexible, less convenient)
• http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/howtos/updates/major_upgrade.html

Once you got that running the rest of the details fall into place by reading the documentation for whatever feature you need. Using Visual Studio / Votive with intellisense ensures that you can learn as you go with features such as shortcuts, ini files, xml files, dialogs, etc...

Another top tip is to use dark.exe (part of the Wix toolkit) to decompile existing MSI files. This yields Wix XML with code you can copy and paste into your own Wix files. I use other MSI tools to compile such MSI files, and then copy the sections I need into my Wix file - just to speed up the process of creating the Wix XML. Studying the decompiled XML is very educational - a real time saver.

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UPDATE, May 2021: Some more links:

1. WiX Quick Start - Very long version
2. WiX Quick Start - Short version