Wix: Add project to setup package

Question

I have created a Wix project and the .wxs file has been changed in my solution. I am not clear about how to add my original projects to current package.

For example, my steps are as below:

1. I have a winform project named: MyApplication
2. I created a Wix project and changed the .wxs
3. The .msi file was created after I compiled my Wix project.
4. I install MyApplication with .msi file.
5. Result: short cut has been created in both desktop and start menu. However, I have checked the installed files(F:\\MyApplication) but nothing has been found. No executable files, no library files and even this path (F:\\MyApplication) is not found.

Any suggestion?

Answer 1

Wix is a toolset that expects you to do a lot of the heavy lifting yourself. There are no Visual Studio automatisms.

To build a Wix file, you will need to type it manually or use the tools that came with the toolset. In this case, the tool you want to use is heat.exe , the harvester. It can scan various places (folder, projects etc) and produce a wix file that will install all files it found.

See this link for a very good documentation including examples