Wix v3.10.01823, Visual Studio 2015

Question

Running a pre-build command I have reason to believe is supposed to work but I get an exit code 5053 from Heat, as well as an error stating the Debug folder did not contain any files or subdirectories. and therefore there was nothing to harvest. Any clue to what I might be doing wrong?

The command ""%WIX%\bin\heat" dir "C:\VSSDev\FrRibbon\frRibbon\bin\Debug" -out "C:\VSSDev\FrRibbon\frRibbonSetup\AppOutputFromHeat.wxs" -t "C:\VSSDev\FrRibbon\frRibbonSetup\HeatTransform.xsl" -nologo -ag -srd -sreg -suid -cg frRibbon.Output -dr INSTALLFOLDER -var var.frRibbon.TargetDir" exited with code 5053. frRibbonSetup C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX\v3.x\wix2010.targets 816

The directory 'C:\VSSDev\FrRibbon\frRibbon\bin\Debug' did not contain any files or sub-directories and since empty directories are not being kept, there was nothing to harvest. frRibbonSetup heat.exe 0

Answer 1

Make sure the project that you are Heating the outputs from is building before your WiX project. You can do this by changing the build order in the Solution's properties, or you can add a reference to the frRibbon project in your WiX project.

I prefer adding the reference to the WiX file so it is easier to see what projects the install is being created from, even if you aren't using the Auto Project Harvesting.