I was asked to work on a WCF project that was created in Visual Studio 2013. I didn't have VS 2013 installed, so I used VS2019. I have to create an installer to allow QA to install the service. I found and read about VS2019 Advanced Installer Extension. I created the MSI file. During my testing, it went through the install process successfully and copied the files to the appropriate directory. However, the service did not appear under the service window after installing. I clicked on "Add Project Output" and added a primary output and selected all other dependencies that are related to the projects. That did not solve the issue. I've read online that a custom action can be created, but there was no clear instructions or steps on how to create a custom action. Has anyone able to create and install a WCF service with Advanced Installer Extension? Am I missing a something?
Advanced Installer offers predefined support to install services, there is no need to go with a custom action. For details, please check the How to install a service article.
By default, the VS Extension will create a project of Simple type. To have access to Services feature you need to upgrade the project to Professional from the project options.
Since you mention custom action approach, if you need to integrate C# custom actions in the installer, check the How to integrate and debug custom actions artticle. You can debug your C# custom actions by attaching on the installation process from Visual Studio. Or, if you prefer Powershell custom action approach.