Using WiX to build Windows installers

All Windows applications need to be installed. Sure, you can just wrap your binaries and assets in a zip file and leave installation as an exercise for your users, but that means they’re unlikely to ever come back. That’s where the various Windows packaging and installer tools come in, giving you a way to build executables that place all the various elements of your code in the right place in a Windows install, ensuring that all the necessary dependencies are installed, and icons and shortcuts are in the start menu, ready to go.

How do you go about building an installer? Many of the tools out there take advantage of the standard Windows Installer packaging tools, but getting that configuration right can be hard, especially when you’re making packaging the final part of a CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous delivery) build process. When your code, artifacts, and dependencies change from build to build, you need a scriptable configuration environment that can be managed by your build tools, integrated into your development environment and your code repository.

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