Wix not able to find the .NET 6 exe

Question

I have a console application that has <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>. I am trying to use the exe of this console application in the wix project for creating the setup as shown below:

        <Component Id="_COMP_ConsoleApp_exe" Guid="{34407E06-98A0-4CF3-8021-F9533CFE537D}">
            <File Id="_FILE_ConsoleApp_exe" Name="ConsoleApp.exe" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(var.ProjectSourceDir)\ConsoleApp.exe" />
        </Component>

But during the build it gives the error "The system cannot find the file ..\Release\ConsoleApp.exe". The ConsoleApp.exe is getting created in the Release folder.

Answer 1

That error indicates the file is not in the location you specified. To debug, try putting the full path to the file on your computer in the File/@Source attribute. Once you know you have the right path, then try using BindPaths or, if you must, preprocessor variables to make the location more generic.

I expect you'll find the folder ..\Release\ is not the one you thought it was.

Note: the Name and KeyPath attributes are unnecessary as they will default to those values.