Ok, you’re visual studio is most likely already kinda stuffed, after installing .Net 3.0 and adding the WF-Extension to Visual Studio 2005 and adding the WCF & WPF Extension you got a bunch of new Project and Item Templates.
So here’s another one!
Initially WiX was only a bunch of command-line tools that would turn some xml-files into a nice installer :). Well, with the introduction of Votive there also comes the first usable integration into visual studio. You still have to deal with XML, but at least the commandline tools like candle.exe
, light.exe
and dark.exe
are hidden within the build-process which is being handled by msbuild.
So instead of using the plain-old-setup-project you can now add a wix-installer project to your solution and customize the install-process to your personal needs. Your first stop to get started would be the wix homepage.