Windows Installer: Migrating From InstallShield to WiX

Notice: I've prepared my scripts into this repository github: IS2WiX ^[5].

Preparation

Installing WiX Toolset will get you all the tools to compile all XML files in your WiX project. It will also install templates to Visual Studio and VS does automatically configure compilation options for you.

We need programming knowledge from XSLT/XPATH to operate on XML files, also some VB.NET knowledge to write customized custom actions.

Here is a list of all related tools and languages.

• WiX Toolset^[1], documentation
• Visual Studio 2012
• Microsoft SDK (Orca.exe, Wilogutl.exe etc.^[2])
• XSLT, XPath, XML
• VB.NET Custom Actions
• InstallShield, Help file
• Your InstallShield project file and Internet Explorer^[3]

The Idea

WiX and InstallShield are tools to make .msi packages, they all base on Microsoft Windows Installer technology. They all use .xml files to represent their project, where .xml is either handcrafted or auto-generated from parameters set from a graphic interface. So to build a bridge between the two, we seek XSLT for help.

Example

Your Binary table shall look similar to this.

<table name="Binary">
 <col key="yes" def="s72">Name</col>
 <col def="V0">Data</col>
 <col def="S255">ISBuildSourcePath</col>
 <row><td>ISLockPermissions.dll</td><td/><td>[ISProductFolder]\redist\Language Independent\i386\ISLockPermissions.dll</td></row>
 <row><td>ISSCHRPL.DLL</td><td/><td>[ISProductFolder]\redist\language independent\i386\isschrpl.dll</td></row>
 <row><td>ISSetup.dll</td><td/><td>[ISProductFolder]\redist\language independent\i386\ISSetup.dll</td></row>
 ...
</table>

Let's write a stylesheet to convert the above table to WiX format,

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" />
    <xsl:template match="/">
        <xsl:for-each select="/table/row">
            <Binary>
                <xsl:attribute name="Id">
                  <xsl:value-of select="td[1]" /></xsl:attribute>
                <xsl:attribute name="SourceFile">
                  <xsl:value-of select="td[3]" /></xsl:attribute>
            </Binary>
        </xsl:for-each>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

The output shall look like,

<Binary Id="ISLockPermissions.dll" SourceFile="[ISProductFolder]\redist\Language Independent\i386\ISLockPermissions.dll" />
<Binary Id="ISSCHRPL.DLL" SourceFile="[ISProductFolder]\redist\language independent\i386\isschrpl.dll" />
<Binary Id="ISSetup.dll" SourceFile="[ISProductFolder]\redist\language independent\i386\ISSetup.dll" />

View the InstallShield Project

Your project is composed of tables. With the help of stylesheet written in is.xsl^[4], you could have a direct view of all these tables.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="is.xsl" ?>

From InstallShiled MSI tables to WiX

One can search help files provided by WiX to study how it is really mapped. The following is an incomplete list collected while I was working on a migration project.

IS/MSI	WiX Element	Parent
ActionText	ProgressText	UI
AdminExecuteSequence	AdminExecuteSequence	Fragment
AdminUISequence	AdminUISequence	Fragment
AdvtExecuteSequence	AdvertiseExecuteSequence	Product
AppSearch	DirectorySearch	Property
Binary	Binary	Fragment
CheckBox	Control Type="CheckBox" CheckBoxValue=""	Dialog
Component	Component	Fragment, Directory
Control	Control	Dialog
ControlCondition	Condition	Control
ControlEvent	Publish	UI
CreateFolder	CreateFolder	Directory
CustomAction	CustomAction	Fragment
Dialog	Dialog	UI
Directory	Directory	Directoryref, Fragment
DrLocator	DirectorySearch	Property
Error	Error	UI
EventMapping	Subscribe	Control
Feature	Feature	FeatureGroup, Fragment
FeatureComponents	FeatureRef, ComponentRef, ComponentGroupRef	Fragment
File	File	Component
Font	File TrueType=yes	Component
ISString	String	WixLocalization
Icon	Icon	Shortcut
InstallExecuteSequence	InstallExecuteSequence	Product
InstallUISequence	InstallUISequence	UI
Property	Property	Product
RadioButton	RadioButton, RadioButtonGroup	Control
Registry	Registry	Component
ServiceControl	ServiceControl	Component
ServiceInstall	ServiceInstall	Component
Shortcut	Shortcut	Component
TextStyle	TextStyle	UI
UIText	UIText	UI
Upgrade	Upgrade, UpgradeVersion	Product

Footnote

1. WiX Toolset
2. Windows Installer Development Tools
3. Chrome will have problems viewing an .xml file referencing another .xsl file locally due to the cross-origin security issue.
4. By default, the stylesheet file should be at C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield\2011\Support\is.xsl
5. Github: IS2WiX