By default, Windows Installer packages are single-language only — no direct support for multi-language packages is currently provided. Creating a multi-lanuage installation package is thus a little more compex — the following provides a summary of the steps required:
- Create an english package
- Compile
candle -dLANG=1033 foo.wxs - Link
light -out foo.msi -loc strings-en.wxl foo.wixobj
- Compile
- Create the german (or whatever language) package
- Compile
candle -dLANG=1031 foo.wxs - Link
light -out foo-de.msi -loc strings-de.wxl foo.wixobj - Create a transform describing the differences between german and englich package:
msitran -g foo.msi foo-de.msi de.mst - Embed the transform in the english package:
msidb -d foo.msi -r de.mst
- Compile
The boostrapper has to decide which language the installer package should use. To use english, call msiexec without any special parameters. To use german, pass the parameter TRANSFORMS=:de.mst to msiexec, which directs it to apply the embedded transform named de.mst before running the package.
To avoid creating a bootstrapper, you might want to try this. See also: WiX tutorial, Lesson 8.
LinkedIn Profile
Xing Profile
Thanks for your summarize.
You can even have it easier at compile time, if you work with language id property LANG as a localized property.
You put
1031
in your german wxl and
1033
in your english wxl.
You also set the @WixLocalization/Culture property to de-DE resp. en-US.
Then the steps easy up to
1. candle foo.wxs
2. light -out foo.msi -loc strings-en.wxl foo.wixobj
3. light -out foo-de.msi -loc strings-de.wxl foo.wixobj
4. msitran -g foo.msi foo-de.msi de.mst
5. msidb -d foo.msi -r de.mst
Since the light steps take long, also think about
2. lit -bf -out foo.wixlib -loc strings-en.wxl -loc strings-de.wxl foo.wixobj
3. light -cultures:”en-US” -out foo-de.msi foo.wixlib
4. light -cultures:”de-DE” -out foo.msi foo.wixlib
5. msitran -g foo.msi foo-de.msi de.mst
6. msidb -d foo.msi -r de.mst
Thanks for sharing this, Joachim. This should definitely speed up the build process.
Many thanks for this article. It was very helpful for me, but I can’t do the last step: “The boostrapper has to decide which language the installer package should use.” Can you write a simple example of msbuild project that ilustrates how to do it?
best regards, Jan