Is it possible to use .png images for WiX bitmaps

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+1 Q:

Is it possible to use .png images for WiX bitmaps

I am using 2 500K bitmaps in to display images on my WiX dialogs.

They dramatically increase the size of the installation package, and what is worse - it looks there's no way to package them as a part of a .cab file since they're <binary>-es in the WiX terms.

So, I thught, is there any way to use other file formats for bitmaps or WiX is tethered with BMP? Ideally it would be greate if there's a way to use .png format since it comes with a looseless compression option.

+6 A:

The Windows Installer documentation for the Bitmap control states that the image should be a "bitmap" -- presumably a .BMP file -- or a JPEG.

You have to remember, when working with WiX, that it's based on Windows Installer. This means that any limitations in WiX are often caused by limitations in the underlying Windows Installer implementation.

.BMP files can be RLE-compressed. I don't know if they support any other compression algorithms.

Roger Lipscombe 2008-12-25 09:58:21

I had tried to use RLE-compressd .BMP-s but to do so I had have to decrease color depth to 256 and the results (a picture's quality) were far from satisfactional. Thank you.

2008-12-25 11:01:23

+2 A:

The WiX toolset isn't tethered to BMP and JPG. As you've found you could put any of those other image formats into your package. However, the MSI SDK only documents BMP and JPG support.

Rob Mensching 2008-12-25 20:06:59

Obviously, I'm not going to doubt you, Rob. That said: can you clarify this? I was under the impression that the MSI controls were the built-in ones, and that WiX couldn't do much else with them. That said, the OP didn't specifically talk about controls, but...

Roger Lipscombe 2008-12-25 20:54:58

Roger, I was just trying to separate MSI from WiX. WiX will allow you to store whatever in the Binary table even though MSI will only render BMP and JPG. Why would you want to store a PNG in the Binary table? I don't know but it isn't WiX's fault it won't render in the UI. <smile/>

Rob Mensching 2009-01-13 01:06:43

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Is it possible to use .png images for WiX bitmaps

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