Best Approach for a Self-Contained .NET Application?

[eajhnsn1]

I have a pair of small applications for which I'm using Wix 4 to install. These are .NET 6 applications which I want installed as Self Contained applications.

Is there a better approach to this than adding a BeforeBuild msbuild target to the .wixproj which manually calls dotnet publish .... --self-contained and harvesting the resulting output?

[chrpai]

Here's what I find works really well for me. I create a repos with an Application\Application.sln and Installer\Installer.sln. My projects are like Application\Project\Project.csproj.

I create a FolderPublish Profile that looks like this.

FolderProfile.pubxml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=208121.
-->
<Project>
  <PropertyGroup>
    <Configuration>Release</Configuration>
    <Platform>x64</Platform>
    <PublishDir>..\..\Installer\Deploy</PublishDir>
    <PublishProtocol>FileSystem</PublishProtocol>
    <_TargetId>Folder</_TargetId>
    <TargetFramework>net7.0</TargetFramework>
    <RuntimeIdentifier>win-x64</RuntimeIdentifier>
    <SelfContained>true</SelfContained>
    <PublishSingleFile>false</PublishSingleFile>
    <PublishReadyToRun>false</PublishReadyToRun>
    <PublishTrimmed>false</PublishTrimmed>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

In he Project.csproj I added property <PublishProfile>FolderProfile</PublishProfile>

In my build I simply run:

dotnet publish Application\Application.sln -c Release /p:Version=1.2.3.4

This places everything I need in the Installer\Deploy folder. You can exclude stuff like .PDBs. createdump.exe and if you see something like mscordaccore_amd64_amd64_7.0.523.17405.dll you don't want that either. You only need mscordaccore.dll.

From there I use my IsWiX project templates to create my WiX v4 files, drag drop the files in from the deploy folder, create a shortcut and build it all using:

dotnet build $slnFile -c Release /p:MSIProductVersion=1.2.3 -o OUTPUT_ARTIFACTS_PATH

It's super easy these days.

[robmen]

Try adding Publish='true' to the ProjectReference in your .wixproj to your .csproj. So in "My.wixproj":

<ItemGroup>
  <ProjectReference Include="..\path\to\Your.csproj" Publish="true" />
</ItemGroup>

Then you can use the automatically added bindpath !(bindpath.Your) in your Source attribute to reference the files.

[eajhnsn1]

Fantastic, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you Rob!

[maroonedsia]

It seems just publishing the project is not good enough, unless the used publish profile has the <SelfContained>true</SelfContained>... then my question was how to pick the publish profile for the build, and it seems chrpai's answer includes a clue. If I'm missing anything here, please let me know. Thanks! 👍

[maroonedsia]

Here is my solution, it's a combination of @robmen and @chrpai answers:

1. Create a publish profile for the project you want to publish (this is the project that is going to be referenced in the wixproj). When you right-click the project in the solution explorer and choose 'Publish', VS creates the .pubxml file in the \Properties\PublishProfiles\ folder for you. NOTE: the default visual studio .gitignore ignores publish profiles, so if you want to check in this file, you need to remove the ignore rule. Make sure your publish profile includes <SelfContained>true</SelfContained>
2. Add this line to the to-be-published .csproj file's PropertyGroup: <PublishProfile>[Your_Profile_Name]</PublishProfile>
3. Add the Publish="true" to the <ProjectReference> of the .wixproj file.