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Spike: Explore the project

What did HeatWave give us? The MSI Package (WiX v4) template in HeatWave gives us four files. In order of importance, they are:

  • Package.wxs
  • Folders.wxs
  • ExampleComponents.wxs
  • Package.en-us.wxl

Let’s take a look at them.

File extensions

The files that HeatWave conjured for us have these two extensions:

  • .wxs, for WiX Source file.
  • .wxl, for WiX Localization file.

WiX doesn’t force you to use particular extensions for your WiX source files but if you stick with the defaults, your life will be easier. (For example, if you supply a file with a .wxl extension, WiX knows to treat it as a localization file, but if you want to use a different extension, you have to use a switch to tell WiX it’s a localization file.)