Platform identification in WiX 3.0

Question

I am facing issues when migrating the managed code from x86 to x64 platform. I have a WiX project to create an MSI which will be executed through Bootstrapper.

On an

Answer 1

You can use the Condition statement (documentation here) which will detect which platform the installer is running on at install time. This allows you to create just one installer which will work on all platforms.

The test for 64-bit platform is VersionNT64 and conversely the test for non 64-bit platforms is NOT VersionNT64.

For example:

<Component Id="SomeComponentId" Guid="SomeGuid">
    <Condition>
        <![CDATA[NOT(VersionNT64)]]>
    </Condition>
    <File Id="SomeFile" Name="Somefile.exe" Source="$(var.UI.TargetDir)\ProjectOutput.exe" />
</Component>

Answer 2

I don't believe you will be able to have a single MSI that will support both platforms. You will need to create one for x86 and another x64 - the good news is that you don't need to maintain another WiX project to achieve this.

The way I've done this in the past is to have the following at the beginning of your product definition.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">

    <?if $(var.Platform)=x64 ?>
      <?define msiProductId = "102F7DF4-19A6-4d3d-987F-FF57A2031593" ?>
      <?define win64Flag = "yes" ?>
    <?else ?>
      <?define msiProductId = "8AE46CAF-220F-4B9F-9527-D4A19A27C45B" ?>
      <?define win64Flag = "no" ?>
    <?endif ?>

    <Product Id="$(var.msiProductId)"
             Name="My Product"
             Language="1033"
             Version="1.0.0"
             Manufacturer="Acme"
             UpgradeCode="E2575E4A-A62E-4460-B96D-B722C79C8EAA">

        <Package InstallerVersion="400"
                 Compressed="yes"
                 InstallPrivileges="elevated"
                 Platform="$(var.Platform)"
        />

        <!-- Rest of product definition goes here -->

    </Product>
</Wix>

I forget where I got the advice to use a different ProductID for each platform.

I created the 'win64Flag' variable to get other WiX elements to work nicely in the cross-platform scenarios. As an example, here's how you use it to make a single RegistrySearch definition work for both platforms and should resolve the issue you are having with locating the 12-hive hierarchy.

<Property Id="WSE12DIRECTORY">
    <RegistrySearch Id="Reg_WSE12DIRECTORY"
                    Type="raw"
                    Root="HKLM"
                    Key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0"
                    Name="Location"
                    Win64="$(var.win64Flag)"
    />
</Property>

With all this in place, then it is just a case of passing the relevant value for the 'Platform' pre-processor variable on the Candle command-line, or selecting the target platform in Visual Studio.

Answer 3

You can use

candle -arch x86 

or

candle -arch x64 

and as result the Platform="x64" and Win64="true" attributes will be generated.