What's the simplest way to ensure that WiX projects build without having to install the toolkit?

Question

I've had some trouble getting WiX projects to build on build servers. One of the pain points has been that my WiX projects are referencing libraries in c:\program files... and the build process calls executables in the same path. This is a bummer because I have to install WiX toolkit in order to get my project to build.

What's the best way to eliminate this headache by having all build tools local to the project being built?

Is there a nuget package that does this? (At the time of writing it appears not, but I wanted to verify.) Package Restore capability would be nice because then I don't have to include the (many) WiX files in git.

If not, what do I need to download from WiX? What do I need to modify so that the compiler knows where to find the binaries to build WiX projects?

Answer 1

You can download just the WiX Binaries .zip from http://wixtoolset.org/releases/ then you can modify your wixproj file and update the <WixToolPath></WixToolPath> element to point to your WixBinaries

The WiX documentation has an article that explains how: Integrating Wix Projects into your Daily Builds

Answer 2

There is an unofficial nuget package at WiX.Toolset. However, note that this seems to only be applicable to the setup project itself (i.e. it cannot be used to fetch wix binaries for e.g. a class library assembly).