Installing a SQL Server instance with a bootstrapper

Unless you're sure that an instance of SQL Server is already installed on the end user's computer, you'll probably want to install it yourself. A bootstrapper can check for the existence of SQL Server and install it only if it isn't there, saving you the guesswork. In this recipe, we will create a bootstrapper that will install SQL Server 2014 Express. This is a free database offered by Microsoft.

How to do it...

Add PackageGroup for SQL Server 2014 Express to a bootstrapper project, as shown in the following steps:

  1. Create a new bootstrapper project and call it SqlServerBootstrapper.
  2. Add the UtilExtension namespace to the project by right-clicking on the References node in Solution Explorer and ...

Get WiX Cookbook now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.