Dynamically include files in MSI setup

Question

I am trying to deploy a bunch of files in a directory in my MSI setup. As the files will change frequently I don't want to add the files directly but rather have a way of automatically including all files from within a directory and deploy them to a certain location.

I am using a Visual Studio Setup Project.

Anybody know how/if this is possible?

Answer 1

Using what????

WiX? InstallShield? Visual Studio? WISE? InstallAware? MSI Factory? Some other Windows Installer tool?

• InstallShield - yes. Add a 'dynamic folder' to your setup.
• WiX - kind of. Use heat to generate (partial) WiX sources before calling candle/light.

Answer 2

I did this in NSIS by generating part of my NSIS script in Perl and having a master script which included the dynamic script.

Short answer: it's definitely possible.

Answer 3

I solved the problem by a workaround:

• Add a build action of packaging entire directory (could be filtered) to a ZIP file.
• Add a reference to an empty ZIP file to deployment project.
• Add a custom action to deployment project to extract the ZIP to destination folder.

It's simple and stable.