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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-29T09:10:57+00:00

I have inherited a WiX project from a contractor that recently left. When I

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I have inherited a WiX project from a contractor that recently left.

When I build the WiX installer project, there is no problem – the .msi is built and output as expected.

But when I “rebuild” the WiX installer project, again the .msi is built just fine by light.exe, but it subsequently gets deleted by a “CoreClean”.

Further info: The wix project packages (and references) a single web project.

This is a snippet of the output:

ICE105: ICE105 - Validates the package to make sure that it can be installed in true Per-User mode
        ICE105: Created 05/01/2008. Last Modified 05/21/2008.
        Laying out media.
        Moving file 'C:\Users\codemonkey\AppData\Local\Temp\nxkfdvui\AmazonWebsiteInstaller.msi' to 'C:\web\main\Amazon.Webby.Install\bin\Release\AmazonWebsiteInstaller.msi'.
    Done executing task "Light".
    ...
    ...
Target "CoreClean" in file "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX\v3.x\wix2010.targets" from project "C:\web\main\Amazon.Webby.Install\Amazon.Webby.Install.wixproj" (target "Clean" depends on it):
    Task "ReadLinesFromFile"
    Done executing task "ReadLinesFromFile".
    Task "FindUnderPath"
        Comparison path is "bin\Release\".
    Done executing task "FindUnderPath".
    Task "FindUnderPath"
        Comparison path is "obj\Release\".
    Done executing task "FindUnderPath".
    Task "Delete"
        Deleting file "C:\web\main\Amazon.Webby.Install\bin\Release\AmazonWebsiteInstaller.msi".
        Deleting file "C:\web\main\Amazon.Webby.Install\bin\Release\AmazonWebsiteInstaller.wixpdb".
        Deleting file "obj\Release\MainWixComponents.wixobj".
        Deleting file "obj\Release\UploadContent.wixobj".
        Deleting file "obj\Release\WebSiteContent.wixobj".
        Deleting file "obj\Release\Product.Generated.wixobj".
    Done executing task "Delete".   
    ...
    ...

I can’t find any delete task in the installer project file that involve the msi or output folder, so it’s a result of visual studio doing a rebuild and thinking it needs to clean out files that it doesn’t.

This seems to be the relevant section in “C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX\v3.x\wix2010.targets” causing the delete of the newly built msi:

<!--
==================================================================================================
CoreClean

Cleans all of the compile and link outputs as well as any intermediate files generated along
the way.
==================================================================================================
-->
<PropertyGroup>
<CoreCleanDependsOn></CoreCleanDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target
Name="CoreClean"
DependsOnTargets="$(CoreCleanDependsOn)">
...
<!-- Delete those files. -->
<Delete Files="@(_CleanPriorFileWritesInOutput);@(_CleanPriorFileWritesInIntermediate)" TreatErrorsAsWarnings="true">
<Output TaskParameter="DeletedFiles" ItemName="_CleanPriorFileWritesDeleted" />
</Delete>
...

Any ideas?

Thanks.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    To resolve this I took all the InitialTargets steps (which were msbuild.exe calls) out of the wixproj file and moved them into a batch script called from the pre-build event project property. I did this because there was another problem – the targeted projects were being built as the project was loaded, which meant that it took a long time to open the solution. At any rate, moving everything into a batch file resolved both problems.

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