Question

I’m using WiX to create my products installer. For some reason it’s no longer embedding the .exes and .dlls inside the installer. So I have this:

<Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
  <Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder">
    <Directory Id="USERSPECIFIEDDIR" Name="My-app-name" />
  </Directory>

and it creates a .msi alongside a folder called My-app-name that contains all .exe and dll files required for the application. if i run the installer from there, it’s alright, but if i move the msi elsewhere (without the subdirectory), it errors out because it can’t find the files. how can i tell WiX to embed all binaries inside the installer??

in case it helps, here are some other snippets from my wxs. let me know if you need any other information. oh, and i’m using wix directly from visual studio 2008.

<DirectoryRef Id="USERSPECIFIEDDIR">
  <Component Id="MainExe" Guid="580F8F15-C06C-49A7-ADDC-56C96580DC0D">
    <File Id="MainExe" Name="OrderMonkey.exe" KeyPath="yes" />
  </Component>
  <Component Id="OMEmailerExe" Guid="3B0AECC3-67E5-40B3-83CB-9B84FE965ED8">
    <File Id="OMEmailerExe" Name="OMEmailer.exe" />
  </Component>
  <Component Id="migradomDLL" Guid="37E1BCAE-EB39-4DF5-88C7-AE74CA5EA171">
      <File Id="migradom" Name="MigraDoc.DocumentObjectModel.dll" />
  </Component>
  <Component Id="migrarenderDLL" Guid="C2910B9E-0B06-467A-853C-7651BE7BD9E4">
        <File Id="migrarender" Name="MigraDoc.Rendering.dll" />
  </Component>
  <Component Id="migrartfDLL" Guid="CEBE4DE9-7CA0-4F48-A8B1-1D46E4E48B66">
          <File Id="migrartf" Name="MigraDoc.RtfRendering.dll" />
  </Component>
  <Component Id="mysqldataDLL" Guid="2E474737-474C-4146-8E67-D3837B5DB862">
            <File Id="mysqldata" Name="MySql.Data.dll" />
  </Component>
  <Component Id="pdfchartingDLL" Guid="7467B6C2-BE38-4283-B179-9FA94C4A087F">
              <File Id="pdfcharting" Name="PdfSharp.Charting.dll" />
  </Component>
  <Component Id="pdfsharpDLL" Guid="39F23E36-BF9C-40C1-8190-6A3554B879BC">
                <File Id="pdfsharp" Name="PdfSharp.dll" />
  </Component>
  <Component Id="sqliteDLL" Guid="B043CF20-8DC2-4A10-AE4B-4721263A111E">
    <File Id="sqlite" Name="System.Data.SQLite.dll" KeyPath="yes" />
  </Component>
</DirectoryRef>
<DirectoryRef Id="ApplicationProgramsFolder">
  <Component Id="ApplicationShortcut" Guid="414E91FD-7410-492C-9D48-8125C6ECCF0B">
    <Shortcut Id="ApplicationStartMenuShortcut"
              Name="Order Monkey"
              Description="Order Monkey Orders and Quotes"
              Target="[USERSPECIFIEDDIR]OrderMonkey.exe"
              WorkingDirectory="USERSPECIFIEDDIR" />
    <Shortcut Id="ApplicationOfflineStartMenuShortcut"
              Name="Order Monkey Offline"
              Description="Order Monkey Orders and Quotes"
              Target="[USERSPECIFIEDDIR]OrderMonkey.exe"
              WorkingDirectory="USERSPECIFIEDDIR" 
              Arguments="-offline" />
    <RemoveFolder Id="ApplicationProgramsFolder" On="uninstall"/>
    <RegistryValue Root="HKCU" Key="Software\Microsoft\OrderMonkey" Name="installed" Type="integer" Value="1" KeyPath="yes"/>
  </Component>
</DirectoryRef>

<Feature Id='Complete' Level='1' Title='Order Monkey Complete' Description='The complete package' ConfigurableDirectory='TARGETDIR' Display='expand'>
  <ComponentRef Id='MainExe' />
  <ComponentRef Id='OMEmailerExe' />
  <ComponentRef Id='migradomDLL' />
  <ComponentRef Id='migrarenderDLL' />
  <ComponentRef Id='migrartfDLL' />
  <ComponentRef Id='mysqldataDLL' />
  <ComponentRef Id='pdfchartingDLL' />
  <ComponentRef Id='pdfsharpDLL' />
  <ComponentRef Id='sqliteDLL' />
  <ComponentRef Id='ApplicationShortcut' />
  <ComponentRef Id='AppData' />
</Feature>

Answer 1

Use these elements:

<Package Compressed="yes" InstallScope="perMachine" />
<MediaTemplate EmbedCab="yes" />

Package/@Compressed="yes" creates cabinets instead of loose files. MediaTemplate/@EmbedCab="yes" embeds the default cabinets into the .msi.