Wix 3.6: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML, An In-and-Out, To-the-Point Introduction to Windows Installer XML

I've been using WiX for several years so I have the benefit of having already surmounted the enormous learning curve that comes with beginning WiX. Unfortunately, my team members and I only use Wix just prior to shipping our products so a couple of times a year we jump back into WiX and tend to reminisce about how many sleepless nights this framework has caused us! I was spending so much time re-reading the documentation over the years that I decided it was high time to purchase a book that I could keep on my desk and refer to.Let me express my gratitude that this book has been published. Its an excellent resource and I'm not afraid to admit that I learned a few things I did not know (which I wasn't expecting). The author covers all the core basic topics without stagnating too long on any one area. From the MSI execution sequence to Launch Conditions, everything you need to know is covered to an extent where you can become productive after just a few chapters.I can tell you that back in 2011 it took me about a week of non-stop hacking at a WiX project to figure out how to send properties entered by the user into a form (during the InstallUISequence) to a deferred CustomAction being executed in commit mode (during the InstallExecuteSequence). I was more than impressed that the author dedicated a whole page to this specific scenario (imagine your installer is placing down a file, like web.config, and you need to update that file based on a value the user enters in the user interface).The only real complaint I have with the book is the total absence of any mention of the IisExtension and SqlExtension, which allow you to deploy Web Sites/Web Services and SQL databases natively in WiX without the need for any custom action code. The good news is that once you understand the basics, digging into all the extensions (such as IisExtension) takes little effort since you already understand the framework.If you have even a passing interest in WiX then purchasing this book is a no-brainer. If you're the kind of programmer that thinks you can pick up and use Wix effectively simply by reading the WiX documentation stop that thought right now and consider how valuable your time is. It's true what they say about the learning curve in WiX but it's tight integration with Visual Studio, ability to run native .NET custom actions, and it's extension versatility make it much more useful for most .NET programmers when compared to NSIS or InstallShield.

Nick Ramirez has done what few tech authors have been able to do.Firstly, he has made up for an incredible lack of coherent documentation on WiX with clear, concise, and easy to understand documentation.Second, he has also achieved an even rarer feat. This book is not only an excellent tutorial, but an excellent reference as well. There are a lot of very good tech books that usually either great reference materials, or great tutorials, but hardly ever both.In a matter of minutes, WiX made much more sense. I followed the tutorial as far as I needed, and then was able to jump ahead to the chapter on services, and complete a working install in a fraction of the time I already wasted scouring the web.If you are going to use WiX, do not hesitate to buy this book.

Anyone who has just started to program installs using WIX has the same reaction. Why is finding documentation and examples so difficult. You'd swear that WIX programmers were some exclusive club that never shared their secrets... very frustrating for a beginner. Then along comes this book and it makes it so simple to understand. If you need to program with WIX then get this book. It will save you time, money and many hours of frustration.

I have realized that this probably is one of the better books on WiX, and I would certainly recommend it to other users: Lots of practical examples, clearly highlighting the essentials. Especially the first few chapters lead you by the hand to get you started, in order to gain practical experience yourself. Language is consise, clear and not too wordy.Yet the book has a few shortcomings. The major one could easily be remedied in the next edition: The index isn't worth much. Every single term I would try to look up is missing, and I must resort to sequential search through the text (or to googling). Not even XML element names are generally available as lookup terms. This makes the book poorly suited as a reference for the half-studied reader who now and then have to resort to reading the documentation, but with no time to sit down to review a long series of tutorials, no matter how instructional they are.My second complaint requires more extensive work: The book is good at telling what to do, but not why. The line of thought, the logic behind the curtains, does not come through very cleary. Again and again, my co-workers and I struggle for days to get things right, going out on the wrong tracks again and again, because we assume a different sort of logic. Once we grasp 'the big picture', we see the meaning of those details in the book, and exclaim "But why didn¨t you explain WHY?" After all, few textbook examples fit exactly to your problem, and then you must have a somewhat deeper understanding of the internals to work efficiently. The book takes some steps in the right direction, e.g. by explaining the sequence of steps in the installation process, but it requires a great effort from the reader to relate various parts of the WiX markup to these steps.Extending the index to five times its current size would alone change my rating from a high 3 to a high 4. To reach a 5 would take a lot of revision to make the reader not only learn WiX, but understand WiX and the Windows installer. After reading this book from start to end, you still have a long way to go to truly understand WiX and msiexec.

Best book to understand each and every basic concept!!This book is extremely useful to everyone who want to be an expert in WIX!!! Very helpful!

Ho acquisto il libro al momento in cui Wix è alla versione 3.10.3 e quindi alcune cose sono cambiate e/o migliorate. Comunque rimane uno dei pochi libri sull'argomento in circolazione. Descrive praticamente tutte le funzionalità presenti in Wix anche se in alcuni casi non approfonditamente. Leggendolo in maniera cronologica è quasi un tutorial con rimandi ad approfondimenti. Buona la quantità di codice presente anche se in alcuni punti manca di parti e non si riesce ad usare direttamente: lo si può comunque scaricare dal sito dell'editore.Direi che è un ottimo punto di partenza per imparare Wix. Comunque da integrare con la documentazione originale (anche se scarsa) e qualche forum in rete.Per me un ottimo acquisto

Nach dem Upgrade von Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 auf 2013 musste ich feststellen, dass die bisher vorhandenen Setup-Projekte nicht mehr Bestandteil von Visual Studio 2013 sind. Also musste eine professionelle und möglichst kostenlose Alternative her.Diese gibt es mit Wix (hier hätte man dem Namensgeber mal die deutsche Bedeutung näherbringen sollen). Allerdings ist WiX funktional so umfassend und für Umsteiger von anderen Setup-Tools bisweilen sehr herausfordernd, so dass eine gute und umfängliche Dokumentation notwendig ist.Diese liegt mit dem vorliegenden Buch eindeutig vor. Sämtliche Aspekte von WiX werden behandelt und praxisnahe Lösungen werden angeboten, so dass man schnell seine eigenen Setup-Projekte mit WiX realisieren kann.

I had the task of upgrading the ".msi" build files from the previous older version of Wix. I had little or no experience using Wix or building installer packages. I read all the free online tutorials - which were extremely helpful in upgrading most of the ".wxs" files automatically but there were still some issues and error messages that stopped me from completing the task. The book goes into more detail than the online tutorials. As a result I was able to complete the task successfully. I spent a lot of time hunting around the web for online tutorials and spent a considerable amount of time (many days) learning about Wix. I think I would have saved several days , had I first started reading the book. If you need to learn Wix, and use it to do something useful, this book will be a very useful place to start . It would be remiss of me not to heap praise on the Community of Wix developers who have given up much of their free time developing and making Wix available to the rest of us - Than You.

必要にせまられて、仕方なく購入。英文は得意でないけど、コードがあるのと、平易な英文なので、そう無理することなく読めるはずです。私の場合はそこそこ時間がかかりましたが。同じ作者のWiX Cookbookと同時購入すれば、たいていの種類のWInodws用インストーラを作成できるまので情報を得ることができます。これをGoogle先生だけだと、かなり時間をロスします。