Recommendations for getting started with WiX?

The tutorial is probably the simplest way to learn how to author an installer using WiX, but there are samples on the wixwiki site that you may be able to adapt without needing to learn everything involved in writing an installer from nothing.

That tutorial is actually probably the best that's out there right now - WiX and Windows Installer technology is a bit "baroque" and involved....

If you want to whip up just a quick'n'easy installer, maybe this will be good enough for you?

Wix# (WixSharp) - managed interface for WiX

It's like writing C# - and it gets compiled to WiX - quite nifty.

It can't do everything - but maybe for your simple install, it's good enough - or at least it could give you a skeleton to build upon.

Marc

I used that same tutorial a couple years ago when I needed to learn WiX. MSI (and therefore WiX) are incredibly complex, you'll need to invest some time to get it right.

If you have Visual Studio, I highly recommend getting Votive (which, I think, comes bundled in WiX v3 now). It'll set up VS to recognize the WiX XML schema and make hand-editing XML files much easier.

When you install the WIX 3.0 toolset, it comes with a manual. It is installed to C:\Program Files\Windows Installer XML v3\doc\wix.chm and is linked in the start menu.

This is not just a dry reference manual. It contains a lot of introductory material such as the "Authoring your first .wxs file" and "How To: Add a File To Your Installer".

The manual also links to the tutorial you mention and some audio-visual material in the "Getting Started Learning Wix" topic.

The wix3 manual is also available online here.