How to quickly create a wix setup for a visual studio project

Question

I have several large websites that I wish to create a WIX installer for. I'm dreading coming up with the initial WIX setup since there are a lot of files. Are there any shortcuts for this? I mean, if is there any tool I can use that I can point to a file system and tell it to generate components for every item? I'm using Visual Studio 2010 and have the WIX plugin installed, but I don't see anything that could take a project output and then generate the components. Please let me know if something like that exists. Thanks!

Answer 1

Take a look at the WiX Heat tool. It might meet your needs.

Answer 2

Also take a look at IsWiX ( Industrial Strength Windows Installer XML ). The concept is you create merge module project(s) to organize your files into collections of related components and then consume them with a WiX installer project. You can take a look at the source code to see how IsWiX uses IsWiX to create it's own installer.