Why does WiX burn.exe fail with error 0x8007000d?

Question

I've got a .msi file produced by WiX which is working great, and now I want to wrap it in a bootstrapper. Previously I used setupbld, but as that is now deprecated I'm experimenting for the first time with burn from WiX 3.8.

However, every time I run burn from the command line nothing happens, regardless of parameters. I connected a debugger and got the following output if I run burn.exe with no parameters:

The program '[0x1380] burn.exe: Native' has exited with code -2147024883 (0x8007000d).

Does anybody know what is wrong here?

Note, I am literally running "C:\Program Files (x86)\WiX Toolset v3.8\bin\x86\burn.exe". I notice that burn.exe has an icon resembling an msi package (despite being an exe) so I'm not sure whether this is the installer for burn, or whether it is burn itself.

Tbh, I'm finding that although there is lots of documentation on writing the XML files needed by burn, there seems to be precious little on actually invoking it, and what to expect when one does.

Answer 1

Burn is the bootstrapper engine, not the builder. The error is ERROR_INVALID_DATA, which makes sense because burn.exe does have any data attached to it; The builder copies and modifies it to contain and/or point to containers for your bootstrapper's data.

To build a bootstrapper, you create a WiX document with a bundle element and then run candle.exe and light.exe on it.

Many people use a build system to run their tools and an IDE to manage their projects. WiX integrates with MSBuild and Visual Studio (non-free editions). There is a WiX Bootstrapper project template for Visual Studio provided, too. The SharpDevelop IDE has its own WiX templates (but currently not for the Bootstrapper.)

Note: All WiX projects are MSBuild projects so you can hand-write projects and/or build them with MSBuild instead of the IDE.