WiX5: Setup creates an extra folder when not using INSTALLFOLDER property at all.

[madmaxoft]

My scripts don't have any reference to INSTALLFOLDER at all - I'm using a separate property name for the install location. Yet when I build the setup and run it, it contains an INSTALLFOLDER directory entry (as confirmed with the Orca editor) and it creates an empty folder c:\Program Files\<manufacturer> <product>.

I've found some references to INSTALLFOLDER in the issues here on WiX Github, they speak of WiX auto-creating the folder reference when it is referenced elsewhere in the script files. But there's no such reference in my scripts. How can I turn this auto-creation off, then?

I've recently migrated my setup scripts from WiX3 to WiX5, in the old version the empty folder was not created. I'm using the commandline wix build ... invocation to build my setup (from CMake).

[wmanning]

Feature described here: https://wixtoolset.org/docs/fivefour/#default-installation-folder

[madmaxoft]

Yes, that part also says

And don't worry -- if you already have such an INSTALLFOLDER or never reference a directory with that id, WiX respects your beliefs and won't try to force its own INSTALLFOLDER on you or your package.

Yet despite not having any INSTALLFOLDER in my WiX scripts, it is creating the default one.

[robmen]

INSTALLFOLDER should only be added if something referenced it. Try opening your MSI in Orca and seeing if there are any references to INSTALLFOLDER that surprise you. Maybe one exists that you didn't think. If not, then it is possible there is a bug, and you'll need to debug deeper.

[madmaxoft]

Since there's no mention of INSTALLFOLDER anywhere in my scripts, I'd expect that it's not referenced.

Using Orca, I found out that the reference is silently created for <Component> elements without a Directory attribute (containing only registry entries, so no relation to filesystem at all). Once I added the attribute to all such Components, the auto-generated INSTALLFOLDER truly went away.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[robmen]

That's the new feature in v5. It allows you to write .wxs code like:

<Wix>
  <Package ...>
      <File Source="installthis.txt" />
  </Package>
</Wix>

And the defaults (like this new INSTALLFOLDER feature) give you everything you need to create a full-blown MSI.

[madmaxoft]

So far I've only come up with a workaround, but it's not perfect. I add this to my script:

<StandardDirectory Id="ProgramFiles6432Folder">
	<Directory Id="INSTALLFOLDER" Name="{my default install folder}" />
</StandardDirectory>

This works by replacing the bad empty folder with the default install folder, but I'm afraid it'll break if the user decides to install to a non-default folder.