visual studio 2017 - WiX Toolset: Creating a simple WiX project breaks in VS2017: The "CreateProjectReferenceDefineConstants" task was not found

Question

I'm new to using Wix, and tried to make a simple installation for my App. I did the following:

1. Downloaded and installed the Extension for Visual Studio 2017 from here.
2. Download and installed WiX Toolset v3.11.1
3. Created a Setup Project for WiX v3
4. Added a reference to my App in the project, and added the block in Product.wxs:

<Component Id="ProductComponent">
  <File Source="$(var.MyApplication.TargetPath)" />
</Component>

Answer 1

.NET Framework 3.5: After some debugging the solution was to install the .NET Framework 3.5.

• WiX 3.x has a build-dependency requiring this version.
• WiX 4.x requires .NET Core and Framework 4+.

Procedure:

1. Hold Windows Key and Tap R. Type: appwiz.cpl and press Enter.
2. Left pane, click "Turn Windows Features On / Off".
3. Tick / enable: ".NET Framework 3.5".
4. Run Windows Update (!) . If you can. To check for security updates.
   • On Windows 10:
     • Hold Windows Key and Tap R.
     • Type: ms-settings:windowsupdate and press Enter.
     • Click "Check for updates".

Now you should be able to build your WiX projects.

Or talk to tech support if you are in a managed environment. They should have a ready-made package for this .NET runtime, unless the runtime itself is prohibited from use.

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Links:

• Cannot build WIX project on windows 10
• Hello WiX - minimal step-by-step example for writing a WiX installer in Visual Studio.
• Chris Painter's samples: https://github.com/iswix-llc/iswix-tutorials
• WiX Quick Start. Further links to more samples.