Integrating Wix with MSBuild

Question

we are looking to automate an MSI generation for a product we are developing. Currently we have MSBuild building out the source to a network location, this is fine for testing but when it comes to releasing the software we will need to wrap it in an MSI.

The software is all .Net bar 1 COM component that will need registered on each machine it gets installed to.

What I was wondering was how to integrate Wix with MSBuild so that a new wix script will get generated along with an MSI that is able to handle fresh and upgrade installs.

Any help with this is very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Brendan

Answer 1

Sure, there are tasks in MS Build that can do all you need to build an MSI from WiX. Can you integrate this on a build / integration server?

Newer builds of Wix actually include a file called "wix.targets", which should get you started.

Also check out these fine articles on the topic:

• Building with Wix.Targets (by Heath Stewart)
• Wix Target for MSBuild (by Willem Meints)
• Automate Releases With MSBuild And Windows Installer XML (by Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi) (Web archive link for archived msdn magazine)

They cover the topic in much more detail and are extremely helpful to get started.

Answer 2

You should download and install Votive. This will create a Visual Studio project file which you can use with MSBuild to create a WiX-based MSI.

Answer 3

There is also a topic in the WiX manual about how to integrate with MSBuild called Using WiX with MSBuild.