Building WiX

Windows Installer XML

Building WiX

Simply run "nant" from the dev\wix directory. This will build debug bits into the "target" directory by default. To build release bits, run "nant -D:flavor=ship". You can disable building IA64-specific parts of the custom action library by running "nant -D:ia64=false".

In order to fully build WiX, you must have the following Frameworks and SDKs installed:

  • NAnt (build 2008-02-10-0.86 or later)
  • The following components from the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5, Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft Windows 7 SDK, and/or Visual Studio 2010:
    • x86 and x64 compilers, headers and libraries
    • IA64 headers and libraries are optional, but they are necessary for IA64 custom action support
    • If you want to be able to build optimized IA64 binaries, you'll need both the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 SDK AND Visual Studio 2008 installed; or the Microsoft Windows 7 SDK AND Visual Studio 2010.
  • HTML Help SDK 1.4 or higher [installed to Program Files or Program Files (x86)]

To build Sconce and Votive, you must have the following SDKs installed:

More information about the Visual Studio SDK can be found at the Visual Studio Extensibility Center.

To install Votive on Visual Studio 2005, 2008, or 2010, you must have the Standard Edition or higher.

To successfully build WiX with only Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 SDK (without Visual Studio 2008), you need to modify your NAnt.exe.config file to support the Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 SDK.

<readregistry
  property="sdkInstallRoot"
  key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0a\WinSDKNetFxTools\InstallationFolder"
  hive="LocalMachine"
  failonerror="false"/>

Replace this with the following element:

<readregistry
  property="sdkInstallRoot"
  key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1\WinSDKNetFxTools\InstallationFolder"
  hive="LocalMachine"
  failonerror="false"/>

Note the only difference is that the "v6.0a" changed to "v6.1" in the "key" attribute.

To successfully build WiX with only the Microsoft Windows 7 SDK and/or Visual Studio 2010, you need to modify your NAnt.exe.config file to support either and the .NET Framework 4.0. See NAnt Configuration for an example.

To build DTF help files, you need the following tools:

The DTF help build looks for them in an "external" directory parallel to the WiX "src" directory:

  • Sandcastle January 2008 Release: external\Sandcastle
  • Sandcastle Help File Builder 1.6.0.4: external\SandcastleBuilder