I found a WiX Tutorial, but it's really long-winded and seems like more than I wanted. What's the best way to get started quickly?
My end goal is nothing really complicated: an installer that installs an ISAPI filter.
+5
A:
That tutorial is actually probably the best that's out there right now - WiX and Windows Installer technology is a bit "baroque" and involved....
If you want to whip up just a quick'n'easy installer, maybe this will be good enough for you?
Wix# (WixSharp) - managed interface for WiX
It's like writing C# - and it gets compiled to WiX - quite nifty.
It can't do everything - but maybe for your simple install, it's good enough - or at least it could give you a skeleton to build upon.
Marc
marc_s
2009-11-22 18:20:29
Thankas Marc. I find the Wix learning curve to be a wall.
Cheeso
2009-11-23 18:21:16
Part of the wall is not WiX so much as Windows Installer itself. WiX just provides a maintainable, clear way to create the MSI, but it doesn't necessarily hide us from all the complexities and gotchas of Windows Installer.
Daryn
2009-12-01 20:05:45
+5
A:
When you install the WIX 3.0 toolset, it comes with a manual. It is installed to C:\Program Files\Windows Installer XML v3\doc\wix.chm and is linked in the start menu.
This is not just a dry reference manual. It contains a lot of introductory material such as the "Authoring your first .wxs file" and "How To: Add a File To Your Installer". (There are 23 "How To:" topics.)
The manual also links to the tutorial you mention, an MSDN topic and some audio-visual material in the "Getting Started Learning Wix" topic.
The wix3 manual is also available online here, but it tends to be ranked lower than it should in google search results. Try putting site:http://wix.sourceforge.net/manual-wix3/ in your google searches like this.
Wim Coenen
2009-11-22 23:11:11
This is how I got started and I found it quite helpful for the simple aspects of my installer. I suggest using this file and if you need to get more complicated there are resources available on the wixwiki mentioned above that I also found useful.
Scott Boettger
2009-11-23 16:05:29
+5
A:
I used that same tutorial a couple years ago when I needed to learn WiX. MSI (and therefore WiX) are incredibly complex, you'll need to invest some time to get it right.
If you have Visual Studio, I highly recommend getting Votive (which, I think, comes bundled in WiX v3 now). It'll set up VS to recognize the WiX XML schema and make hand-editing XML files much easier.
Michael Dunn
2009-11-23 00:05:38