WiX GenerateBootrstraper no longer works after upgrading

Question

I had a solution with 2 projects in Visual Studio 2010 with .NET 4. One project is a shared library ("Widget") and the other is a WiX setup project ("Setup"). WiX project was created for v3.6

I upgraded the solution and the projects to Visual Studio 2012 and WiX 3.7 (still targeting .NET v4) but not my setup project fails to build due to bootstraper errors.

In my project file I have following declared

<!-- WiX Bootstrapper for installing prerequisites-->
<ItemGroup>
  <BootstrapperFile Include=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0">
    <ProductName>.NET Framework 4.0</ProductName>
  </BootstrapperFile>
  <BootstrapperFile Include="Microsoft.Windows.Installer.4.5">
    <ProductName>Windows Installer 4.5</ProductName>
  </BootstrapperFile>
</ItemGroup>  

<Target Name="AfterBuild">
  <GenerateBootstrapper ApplicationFile="$(TargetFileName)"
                        ApplicationName="My Widget"
                        BootstrapperItems="@(BootstrapperFile)"
                        ComponentsLocation="Relative"
                        CopyComponents="True"
                        OutputPath="$(OutputPath)"
                        Path="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0A\Bootstrapper\"/>    
</Target>

However when I build the setup project it fails with following (sorry for the verbosity, just wanted to be detailed)

7>------ Rebuild All started: Project: My.Project.Setup, Configuration: Debug x86 ------
7>  C:\Program Files (x86)\WiX Toolset v3.7\bin\candle.exe -dDebug -d"DevEnvDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\\" -dSolutionDir=X:\Source\My.Project\ -dSolutionExt=.sln -dSolutionFileName=My.Project.sln -dSolutionName=My.Project -dSolutionPath=X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.sln -dConfiguration=Debug -dOutDir=bin\Debug\ -dPlatform=x86 -dProjectDir=X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\ -dProjectExt=.wixproj -dProjectFileName=My.Project.Setup.wixproj -dProjectName=My.Project.Setup -dProjectPath=X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\My.Project.Setup.wixproj -dTargetDir=X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\bin\Debug\ -dTargetExt=.msi -dTargetFileName=My.Project.Setup.msi -dTargetName=My.Project.Setup -dTargetPath=X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\bin\Debug\My.Project.Setup.msi -dMy.Project.Widget.Configuration=Debug -d"My.Project.Widget.FullConfiguration=Debug|x86" -dMy.Project.Widget.Platform=x86 -dMy.Project.Widget.ProjectDir=X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Widget\ -dMy.Project.Widget.ProjectExt=.csproj -dMy.Project.Widget.ProjectFileName=My.Project.Widget.csproj -dMy.Project.Widget.ProjectName=My.Project.Widget -dMy.Project.Widget.ProjectPath=X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Widget\My.Project.Widget.csproj -dMy.Project.Widget.TargetDir=X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Widget\bin\Debug\ -dMy.Project.Widget.TargetExt=.exe -dMy.Project.Widget.TargetFileName=My.Project.Widget.exe -dMy.Project.Widget.TargetName=My.Project.Widget -dMy.Project.Widget.TargetPath=X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Widget\bin\Debug\My.Project.Widget.exe -out obj\Debug\ -arch x86 -ext "C:\Program Files (x86)\WiX Toolset v3.7\bin\\WixUIExtension.dll" -ext "C:\Program Files (x86)\WiX Toolset v3.7\bin\\WixNetFxExtension.dll" Product.wxs
7>  C:\Program Files (x86)\WiX Toolset v3.7\bin\Light.exe -out X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\bin\Debug\My.Project.Setup.msi -pdbout X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\bin\Debug\My.Project.Setup.wixpdb -cultures:null -ext "C:\Program Files (x86)\WiX Toolset v3.7\bin\\WixUIExtension.dll" -ext "C:\Program Files (x86)\WiX Toolset v3.7\bin\\WixNetFxExtension.dll" -contentsfile obj\Debug\My.Project.Setup.wixproj.BindContentsFileListnull.txt -outputsfile obj\Debug\My.Project.Setup.wixproj.BindOutputsFileListnull.txt -builtoutputsfile obj\Debug\My.Project.Setup.wixproj.BindBuiltOutputsFileListnull.txt -wixprojectfile X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\My.Project.Setup.wixproj obj\Debug\Product.wixobj
7>X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\My.Project.Setup.wixproj(71,5): error MSB3152: To enable 'Download prerequisites from the same location as my application' in the Prerequisites dialog box, you must download file 'WindowsInstaller4_5\WindowsXP-KB942288-v3-x86.exe' for item 'Windows Installer 4.5' to your local machine. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=239883.
7>X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\My.Project.Setup.wixproj(71,5): error MSB3152: To enable 'Download prerequisites from the same location as my application' in the Prerequisites dialog box, you must download file 'WindowsInstaller4_5\WindowsXP-KB958655-v2-x86-ENU.exe' for item 'Windows Installer 4.5' to your local machine. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=239883.
7>X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\My.Project.Setup.wixproj(71,5): error MSB3152: To enable 'Download prerequisites from the same location as my application' in the Prerequisites dialog box, you must download file 'WindowsInstaller4_5\WindowsServer2003-KB942288-v4-x86.exe' for item 'Windows Installer 4.5' to your local machine. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=239883.
7>X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\My.Project.Setup.wixproj(71,5): error MSB3152: To enable 'Download prerequisites from the same location as my application' in the Prerequisites dialog box, you must download file 'WindowsInstaller4_5\WindowsServer2003-KB958655-v2-x86-ENU.exe' for item 'Windows Installer 4.5' to your local machine. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=239883.
7>X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\My.Project.Setup.wixproj(71,5): error MSB3152: To enable 'Download prerequisites from the same location as my application' in the Prerequisites dialog box, you must download file 'WindowsInstaller4_5\WindowsServer2003-KB942288-v4-x64.exe' for item 'Windows Installer 4.5' to your local machine. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=239883.
7>X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\My.Project.Setup.wixproj(71,5): error MSB3152: To enable 'Download prerequisites from the same location as my application' in the Prerequisites dialog box, you must download file 'WindowsInstaller4_5\WindowsServer2003.WindowsXP-KB958655-v2-x64-ENU.exe' for item 'Windows Installer 4.5' to your local machine. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=239883.
7>X:\Source\My.Project\My.Project.Setup\My.Project.Setup.wixproj(71,5): error MSB3152: To enable 'Download prerequisites from the same location as my application' in the Prerequisites dialog box, you must download file 'WindowsInstaller4_5\Windows6.0-KB958655-v2-x86.MSU' for item 'Windows Installer 4.5' to your local machine. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=239883.
========== Rebuild All: 6 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 skipped ==========

Any ideas? The Packages location is valid, I verified its existence....

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 08 '13 at 20:37

I was able to partially solve it, and I can get my setups to build, but oh what a pain this was ;)

Here is what I did:

Read How to: Include Prerequisites with a ClickOnce Application on MSDN
For each required setup dependency, you will have to download 1 or more packages and place them in the proper Packages/<package_name>/ folder.

Notes:

Do not forget to "Unblock" packages (right click -> Properties -> Unblock) after downloading them
For English (en) redistributables, downloads go to /Packages/<package_name>/ folder (not /Packages/<package_name>/en/)
Some redistributables contained download links in /Packages/<package_name>/Product.xml file rather than /Packages/<package_name>/en/Package.xml This was the case with Windows Installer 4.5 (which only had /en/ sub-folder so that may be why)

Still an issue:

In the Visual Studio WiX Project, the 2 dependencies still have yellow triangle (warining ?) icon next to them. When clicked, I get an error that dependency is missing, although everything builds without issue.

WiX GenerateBootrstraper no longer works after upgrading

1 Answers1

Notes:

Still an issue: