Reusing WIX components to speed up candle/light

Question

I am fairly new to WIX, so forgive me if I\'m completly missing the boat here, but I was wondering if it was possible to reuse components (mwm,cab,etc) from within a wxs fil

Answer 1

Your intuition is absolutely leading you in the right direction. The feature you are looking for is called "cab-cache". You use it by adding the following to your light.exe command-line:

-reusecab -cc path\to\directory\for\cabinets

Note: Compiling (candle.exe) and linking (first half of light.exe) should happen very quickly. What is usually slow is the binding (second have of light.exe) because it actually touches all of the files and builds the cabinets. Cabinet building is the slowest part, so hopefully the cab-cache speeds things up sufficiently for you.

P.S.: If compiling is taking much time you can create ".wixlib" with lit.exe. I have more about .wixlibs here: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2008/10/10/What-are-.wixlibs-and-why-would-you-use-them