Project Property Pages
Introduction
To access Wix Visual Studio package property pages, right-click on a WiX project in the Visual Studio Solution Explorer and choose Properties.
WiX projects contain the following property pages:
- General
- Build Events
- Compiler
- Linker (for WiX projects and WiX merge module projects)
- Librarian (for WiX library projects)
General Property Page
The General tab contains the following configurable options:
- Output name - a text box that contains the name of the resultant .msi, .msm or .wixlib file that will be created by the build process.
- Output type - a radio button group that allows you to select the output type (a .msi, .msm or .wixlib file).
Build Events Property Page
The Build Events tab contains the following configurable options:
- Pre-build event command line - a text box that contains the pre-build events to execute before building the current project.
- Post-build event command line - a text box that contains the post-build events to execute after building the current project.
- Run the post-build event - a drop-down combo box that allows you to specify the conditions in which post-build events should be executed.
The Build Events tab contains buttons named Edit Pre-build... and Edit Post-build... that display edit dialogs for the pre and post-build event command lines. The edit dialogs contain a list of all valid WiX project reference variables and their values based on the current project settings.
Compiler Property Page
The Compiler tab allows you to configure settings used by Candle (the WiX compiler). This tab contains the following groups of settings:
- The General section allows you to define configuration-specific constants and specify the output path for the compilation process.
- The Errors and Warnings section allows you to toggle treating warnings as errors and showing pedantic compilation messages.
- The Suppress Warnings section allows you to disable warnings for specified warning types.
In addition, the Compiler tab contains an Advanced... button that displays a Candle Advanced Settings dialog. This dialog allows you to configure the following settings:
- Toggle suppressing schema validation of documents.
- Toggle showing source traces for errors, warnings and verbose messages.
- Toggle showing verbose compilation output.
- Add include paths that will be used during compilation.
Linker Property Page
WiX projects and WiX merge module projects include a Linker tab in the property pages. The Linker tab allows you to configure settings used by Light (the WiX linker). This tab contains the following groups of settings:
- The General section allows you to define configuration-specific constants, specify the output path for the linking process and specify cultures to include during the linking process.
- The Errors and Warnings section allows you to toggle treating warnings as errors and showing pedantic linking messages.
- The Suppress Warnings section allows you to disable warnings for specified warning types.
In addition, the Linker tab contains an Advanced... button that displays a Light Advanced Settings dialog. This dialog contains the following tabs:
- Advanced – this tab allows you to toggle verbose linker output, treating identical rows as warnings instead of errors, adding a fileVersion attribute to assemblies in the MsiAssemblyName table and deleting temporary files used during linking.
- Cabinet – this tab allows you to specify the number of threads to use when creating cabinets, toggle whether to reuse cabinets from the cabinet cache and specify the location of the cabinet cache to reuse cabinets from.
- Suppressions – this tab allows you to toggle all of the suppression types that are supported by the linker.
Librarian Property Page
WiX library projects include a Librarian tab in the property pages. The Librarian tab allows you to configure settings used by Lit (the WiX library tool). This tab contains the following groups of settings:
- The General section allows you to specify the output path for the library file and toggle whether or not to bind files into the library file.
- The Errors and Warnings section allows you toggle treating warnings as errors, suppressing schema validation for documents, suppressing intermediate file version mismatch checking and displaying verbose output
- The Suppress Warnings section allows you to disable warnings for specified warning types.