Wix auto update files from a folder

Question

I am creating a msi using a folder as a source. Some files in this folder need to have registry entries, others dont. Problem is that every time I add a new file to this folder, I need to update the wxs file as well using heat. Isn't there an automatic process to incrementally add all files to a folder and ignore the ones already added into the wxs file?

Answer 1

From looking at the heat documentation I don't think there is a way to append to a pre-existing wxs output file. I would also like this functionality such that it only added new files and didn't modify the existing guids.

It seems like it's commonplace for people to recommend that you run heat initially to generate the necessary wxs file and then manually update it as you add/remove items. Seems like it would be great if it would be a little more intelligent though.

I don't see anything like this on the radar either in the WiX issues list.

It does look like Paraffin (alternative to heat) supports this however.