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How Do I Create a Bundle on WiX?

Last updated on October 1, 2022 @ 3:58 am

The Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset lets developers create installers for Windows Installer, the Microsoft installation engine. WiX includes a compiler and a linker that operate on files written in XML to produce MSI and MSM packages.

Creating a bundle with WiX is a two-step process. First, you need to create a Burn bootstrapper application with the WiX Burn toolset. This bootstrapper will install the prerequisites for your main application, as well as your main application itself. Second, you need to create an MSI package for your main application using the WiX toolset. This MSI package will be embedded in the bootstrapper application that you created in the first step.

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To create a Burn bootstrapper application, you will need to install the WiX toolset on your development machine. The WiX toolset is available as a free download from http://wixtoolset.org/. Once you have installed the WiX toolset, you can use the “heat” command to harvest files and registry keys from an existing installation of your main application.

The “heat” command will generate an XML file that contains the information that WiX needs to create the MSI package for your main application.

PRO TIP: When creating a bundle on WiX, be sure to include all of the necessary files. If any files are missing, the bundle will not work properly.

After you have generated the XML file with the “heat” command, you can use the “candle” and “light” commands to compile and link your XML file into a Burn bootstrapper application. The “candle” command will compile your XML file into a set of object files. The “light” command will link these object files into an executable file. The resulting executable file is your Burn bootstrapper application.

To create an MSI package for your main application, you will need to use the “dark” command. The “dark” command is similar to the “light” command, but it generates an MSI package instead of an executable file. The MSI package that is generated by the “dark” command contains all of the files and registry keys that were harvested by the “heat” command.

After you have generated the MSI package for your main application, you can use the “burn” command to embed it in your Burn bootstrapper application. The “burn” command will add the MSI package to your bootstrapper application and modify the bootstrapper’s configuration file so that it knows how to install your MSI package.

Conclusion:

Now that you know how to create a bundle with WiX, you can easily create Windows Installer packages for your applications.

Drew Clemente

Drew Clemente

Devops & Sysadmin engineer. I basically build infrastructure online.