[wix-users] Strategies for Reducing Installer Code Duplication

[Edwin Castro]

On Fri, Sep 18, 2020 at 1:05 PM Todd Hoatson via wix-users <
wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org> wrote:

> So Directories and DirectoryRefs can contain Components, but not
> ComponentRefs or ComponentGroups or ComponentGroupRefs...?
> And a Directory can be specified by Id on a ComponentGroup, but not on a
> Component or a ComponentRef...?
>
> So it would seem impossible to define the components in a Fragment and then
> define a directory structure in the main WiX file with references to those
> components.  Correct?


Components reference Directories, not the other way around. A Component
defined inside a Directory simply references that Directory. These
Components are not contained within a ComponentGroup, FeatureGroup, or
Feature so they must be referenced individually using ComponentRef either
directly in a Feature or indirectly via a ComponentGroupRef or
FeatureGroupRef.

You can define your Directory structure in the main WiX file, or its own
Fragment, and then reference Directories from Components or
ComponentGroups. To get those Components installed by your MSI, they will
still need to be referenced directly or indirectly from one or more
Features.

--
Edwin G. Castro