How to add a folder into a wix package

Question

For my project I need to build an installer msi. We have decided to choose Windows Installer XML for this. I am very new to WiX and we are able to create a msi by adding individual files into the package. I have used the below line of code in WiX (Product.wxs) to add a single file.

< File Id ="FileId0" Name="Global.asax" Source="$(var.SolutionDir)....\Details\Global.asax" Vital="yes" >

Now, I have a directory named Content where I need to include all the files into the package. It takes great effort for me to write one by one and there will be few addition of files in future for this folder. Therefore I don't want to take the risk and include the whole directory into the .msi.

With heat I am able to retrieve the files into a new .wxs file and I need to add these files to the main product.wxs manually. But I want to automate this compltetly where once you buuildd the WiX solution all the required files should be included in .msi

tolanj tolanj · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-02T12:20:30

This shows the documentation of HeatDirectory which is the 'tool' for this task: http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/msbuild/task_reference/heatdirectory.html

Take a look at this for some examples on how to use it: WIX HeatDirectory Task - Setting the preprocessorVariable

How to add a folder into a wix package

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