Is it possible to avoid local installation and use flat files for WiX?

Question

History:

I always try to ensure the following principle in my projects:

After a new check, the developer should be able to perform all tasks related to the project only with the contents of the combined folders.

Obviously, this is not always possible (for example, developing Visual Studio for Windows). However, I really dislike installing any third-party libraries or tools specific to a project like log4net, NHibernate, NUnit, etc. There are several reasons for this, including:

• For this development machine, you can work with several different projects that use different versions of the same third-party library or tool.
• Minimizing your environment tuning requirements makes it easy to configure new developers or machines.
• Facilitates maintenance of auto assemblies.

Assumption / Counterforce

• I am currently using WiX 3 beta, but if there is a way for 2.0 or 3.0, answer
• I am using Visual Studio 2005
• IDE syntax highlighting is optional.

Question:

Can I avoid installing the WiX toolbox locally and use flat files instead? If yes, please explain.

See also:

Answer 1

First create your WiX installer:

• Create a new WiX installer project in Visual Studio 2005.
• Build your WiX XML accordingly.

, WiX :

• c:\Program Files\Windows Installer XML v3\bin . WiX\bin .wixproj .
• c:\Program Files\MSBuild\WiX\v3.0\ . WiX\v3.0 .wixproj .
• , :

<WixTargetsPath Condition=" '$(WixTargetsPath)' == ''>$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\WiX\v3.0\Wix.targets</WixTargetsPath>

:

<WixToolPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\WiX\bin\</WixToolPath> <WixTasksPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\WiX\v3.0\WixTasks.dll</WixTasksPath> <WixTargetsPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\WiX\v3.0\Wix.targets</WixTargetsPath>

, WixToolPath, WixTasksPath WixTargetsPath , , .

• .wixproj .csproj. , Visual Studio .wixproj, .wixproj MSBuild, Visual Studio .

, WiX, , 9 .

Answer 2

WiX 2, DLL , . .bat candle.exe light.exe , .

, WiX 4 .

, , WiX 3.