Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset

What works

- Running candle.exe to create .wixobj files from .wxs.

- Running light.exe to create .msi files from .wixobj files. When you run light.exe with WINEDLLOVERRIDES="msi=n", the produced msi files can be installed on MS Windows.

 

 

What does not

If  you use the wine builtin msi.dll, light.exe produces an .msi file that cannot be installed on MS Windows, probably due to missing summary information in this file. 

Workarounds

What was not tested

I've only tested the most simple example from http://ufpr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/wix/wix-3.0.2925.0-sources.zip : examples/public/first/product.wxs

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

- You need to have mono installed on wine to run candle/light. - When you run light, you have to specify -sh to create an installable msi package. - When you run light, you can add -sacl to suppress a fixme warning - When you run light with the wine builtin msi.dll, you may need to add -sval to create an .msi file. (Note, this msi file does not install on MS Windows, override with a native msi.dll to get an installable msi file)

While WiX appears to work with Mono, there are several nasty bugs in Mono that will cause it to behave unreliably at best, and to generate subtly broken installers at worst. I have had much better experiences using .NET which should be installed by running 'winetricks dotnet20'.