Wix: Add project to setup package

Question

I have created a Wix project and the .wxs file has been changed in my solution. I am not clear about how to add my original projects to current package.

For example, my steps are as below:

1. I have a winform project named: MyApplication
2. I created a Wix project and changed the .wxs
3. The .msi file was created after I compiled my Wix project.
4. I install MyApplication with .msi file.
5. Result: short cut has been created in both desktop and start menu. However, I have checked the installed files(F:\MyApplication) but nothing has been found. No executable files, no library files and even this path (F:\MyApplication) is not found.

Any suggestion?

Answer 1

Wix is a toolset that expects you to do a lot of the heavy lifting yourself. There are no Visual Studio automatisms.

To build a Wix file, you will need to type it manually or use the tools that came with the toolset. In this case, the tool you want to use is heat.exe, the harvester. It can scan various places (folder, projects etc) and produce a wix file that will install all files it found.

See this link for a very good documentation including examples