I am trying to write an installer for a website I created. In the WiX tutorial it says "Again, a component should only contain items that belong together so strongly that they always need to be installed or removed together.". I believe an entire website fits this description. I have 2 issues regarding components. The first is that obviously my website has many directories and I cannot figure out how to get all the directories/files into 1 component (is this even possible?) and that if I generate my components from a program my GUID would almost certainly have to be different on each build forcing a Major version change with each release? Is there something I am missing?
A:
I must admit, up front, that my experience with WIX is pretty limited. However, I was under the impression that a component mapped to a single installable thing, like a file or a dll. These are arranged into component groups, which are then added to features. The features are the things which are installed as units, for example: Core, Documentation and Examples. You'll always want the Core component, in this case, but the Documentation and Examples features could be omitted.
I don't think changing the GUID of a component will force you to change the major version number.
I've had a hard time with WIX myself as the learning curve can be pretty steep. I hope this helps.
jonnii
2009-03-04 18:26:56
As far as I understand simply adding or removing files is considered a "Major Upgrade". Almost every release of a web application will have files added and removed but this is not a Major Upgrade for me.
Greg
2009-03-04 18:36:57
Perhaps you should consider other ways of deploying your web application?
jonnii
2009-03-04 20:31:25
+1
A:
A Component's Files cannot span directories. Limitiation of the Windows Installer. Getting stable Component Ids is a tricky problem, but there are a few new tricks in WiX v3 that can handle this for you. The Component/@Guid="*" is the trick. The new (like last week) heat.exe will generate Fragments for you that seem to meet your needs.
Rob Mensching
2009-03-13 01:21:44
A:
Having been through this, here's my advice:
- Each file should have it's own component.
- If you follow step 1. as Rob says, each component can have attribute GUID="*"
- ComponentGroup is your friend :)
- If you set ProductCode as * and leave UpgradeCode as a fixed GUID, you don't have to write a new upgrade installer for each upgrade, because your MSI is both a new installation installer as well as an upgrade installer. To help control this you need to understand the Upgrade and UpgradeVersion elements.
Some more tricks here.
Si
2009-07-14 01:27:13