WIX Deployment

The following is a setup setups using WIX including additional important info. That you might find in a hard way.

1. Install WIX (15 MB)
   

   http://sourceforge.net/projects/wix/files/
   

   
   

2. Build your application as release.
   
3. Run heat.exe command given full paths for any input file or directory. This will generate application.wxs file that contains GUIDS of release components.
   
4. Use the following command to remove unwanted files from the released application files:
   

   xcopy RELEASE_PATH EXECLUDED_PATH /EXCLUDE:exclude.txt /E /Y
   

   where execlude.txt is a text files that contains unwanted files' extentions. Its content might be as follows:
   

   \.svn
   

   \Properties
   

   \obj
   

   \Helper
   

   .pdb
   

5. Refer to WIX website to build your WIX deployment application.
   
6. Install BootStrapper Manifest Generator that matches your Visual Studio version from here.
   
7. This will help you to create prerequisites for your application.
   
8. Finally you can use a .pat file to gather all in a single file. This .pat file may contains a code like this:
   

   C:\Program Files\WinRAR\WinRAR" a -r -ep1 SETUPNAME SETUP_OUTPUT_PATH\* -s -sfx -zAnswers.diz -iiconico107.ico -m0
   

   
   

   You have to note that WinRAR application should be installed, and Answers.diz is a .diz file that may contains a code like :
   

   Overwrite=1
   

   TempMode
   

   Title=SETUP_TITLE
   

   Silent=2
   

   Setup=setup.exe
   

   
   

   And ico107.ico is an ico file that will be the icon of the generated setup file. So that your setup including the prerequisites can be in a single setup file.