WiX Shortcut Points to the Wrong File

I ran into an interesting bug/feature/problem with my WiX 3.0 / Votive installer recently where shortcuts were pointing to the wrong file.  For example in the case of Dubbelbock TFS, I set up a shortcut to Dubbelbock.UI.exe from Startup and from “Benjamin Day Consulting, Inc” in the Programs menu.  What was happening was that rather than starting up Dubbelbock.UI.exe when I logged into my machine, I got Dubbelbock.UI.exe.config popping up in notepad.  (Not exactly what I wanted.)

Here’s some sample WiX that has the same problem:

<Component Id=”ProductComponent” Guid=”05459650-55cc-4abf-9c6a-f836dc0caef8″>
    <File
        Id=”ClipboardUtility.exe.config”
        Name=”ClipboardUtility.exe.config”
        Vital=”yes”
        Source=”$(var.ClipboardUtility.TargetDir)ClipboardUtility.exe.config” />
    <File Id=”ClipboardUtility.exe”
          Name=”ClipboardUtility.exe” Vital=”yes”
          Source=”$(var.ClipboardUtility.TargetDir)ClipboardUtility.exe” >
        <Shortcut
            Id=”startmenuClipboardUtil”
            Directory=”ProgramMenuDir”
            Name=”Clipboard Utility”
            WorkingDirectory=”INSTALLDIR”
            Icon=”ClipboardUtilityIcon.ico” Advertise=”yes” />
        <Shortcut
            Id=”autostartClipboardUtil”
            Directory=”StartupFolder”
            Name=”Clipboard Utility”
            WorkingDirectory=”INSTALLDIR”
            Icon=”ClipboardUtilityIcon.ico”  Advertise=”yes” />
    </File>
    <File Id=”ClipboardUtilityIcon” Name=”C.ico” DiskId=”1″
        Source=”$(var.ClipboardUtility.ProjectDir)C.ico” Vital=”yes” />
</Component>

Looking at that code, the <shortcut> elements are contained inside of the <file></file> element for ClipboardUtility.exe so you’d think that it would create two shortcuts to ClipboardUtility.exe.  Nope.  It creates two shortcuts to “ClipboardUtility.exe.config”.

After playing around with it for a while, I figured out that the <Shortcut> directives will always create shortcuts to the first <File> in the <Component> rather than the <File> that contains the <Shortcut>.

So…the moral of the story is always put your <File>’s with <Shortcut>’s first in your <Component>.

<Component Id=”ProductComponent” Guid=”05459650-55cc-4abf-9c6a-f836dc0caef8″>
    <File Id=”ClipboardUtility.exe”
        Name=”ClipboardUtility.exe” Vital=”yes”
        Source=”$(var.ClipboardUtility.TargetDir)ClipboardUtility.exe” >
          <Shortcut
            Id=”startmenuClipboardUtil”
            Directory=”ProgramMenuDir”
            Name=”Clipboard Utility”
            WorkingDirectory=”INSTALLDIR”
            Icon=”ClipboardUtilityIcon.ico” Advertise=”yes” />
          <Shortcut
            Id=”autostartClipboardUtil”
            Directory=”StartupFolder”
            Name=”Clipboard Utility”
            WorkingDirectory=”INSTALLDIR”
            Icon=”ClipboardUtilityIcon.ico”  Advertise=”yes” />
    </File>
    <File
      Id=”ClipboardUtility.exe.config”
      Name=”ClipboardUtility.exe.config”
      Vital=”yes”
      Source=”$(var.ClipboardUtility.TargetDir)ClipboardUtility.exe.config” />
    <File Id=”ClipboardUtilityIcon” Name=”C.ico” DiskId=”1″
      Source=”$(var.ClipboardUtility.ProjectDir)C.ico” Vital=”yes” />
</Component>

-Ben