WiX harvest directories with heat

Question

I have a large project with numerous sub-directories I need to harvest files from. I have this entry in my product.wxs file:

<Feature Id="DefaultFeature" Title="Main Feature" Level="1">
   <ComponentGroupRef Id="APP_DATA" />
</Feature>

At build time I run a bat file with a number of heat commands to harvest this directory, among others :

"%WIX%\bin\heat" dir ".\image\App_Data" -cg APP_DATA -gg -scom -dr App_Data -gl -sfrag -srd -out ".\App_Data.wxs"

This generates a file App_Data.wxs in the same folder as the Product.wxs file. But when the build runs I get the following error :

Product.wxs(97): error LGHT0094: Unresolved reference to symbol 'WixComponentGroup:APP_DATA' in section 'Product:{FAD0EA15-49BC-4EF8-A440-87070E4FAC7A}'

I appears that the WiX project cannot find the "APP_DATA" component group in the file App_Data.wxs. How do I get it to do that? I would assume there is an entry in the ProjectName.wixproj file but I have not found what you do.

I have been searching the internet and found a thousand ways to set this up but none go into enough detail about how you get the WiX project to see files generated by heat during the build. I saw this post.

Which talks about editing the Target Name="BeforeBuild" section of the wixproj file. Is that the only way to get this to work?

Novaterata Novaterata · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-08T18:27:21

You need to add App_Data.wxs to your wixproj just like you'd add a code-generated cs file to a csproj. For example, if the App_Data.wxs is in the same folder as your wixproj, you'd add the following Compile element to your ItemGroup element in the wixproj. ProTip: If you are using a SCM that defaults to read-only you'll need to check it out every time or set to always writable.

<ItemGroup>
    <Compile Include="App_Data.wxs" />
</ItemGroup>

WiX harvest directories with heat

1 Answers