Wix Add Desktop Icon

1 minute read

In this article we create Desktop Icon when MSI install application.

Please see below 👇🏻 image of Desktop Icon for reference.

Update [ExampleComponents.wxs]

Below image show content of ExampleComponents.wxs

<Wix xmlns="http://wixtoolset.org/schemas/v4/wxs">
  <Fragment>
    <ComponentGroup Id="ApplicationComponents" Directory="INSTALLFOLDER">
      <Component Directory="INSTALLFOLDER">
        <File Id="ApplicationFile" Source="WPF_Application.exe" />
      </Component>
    </ComponentGroup>
  </Fragment>
</Wix>

Add Output File

First, we need to add file for which we want to share icon.

<Component Directory="INSTALLFOLDER">
  <File Id="ApplicationFile" Source="WPF_Application.exe" />
</Component>

In above code we add output exe file.

This output file is WPF_Application.exe.

For this output file WPF_Application.exe, we want to show Desktop icon.

Add Desktop Icon

<Wix xmlns="http://wixtoolset.org/schemas/v4/wxs">
  <Fragment>
    <ComponentGroup Id="ApplicationComponents" Directory="INSTALLFOLDER">
      <Component Directory="INSTALLFOLDER">
        <!--Add output file-->
        <File Id="ApplicationFile" Source="WPF_Application.exe">
          <!--Add Desktop Shortcut-->
          <Shortcut Id="DesktopShortCut"
                    Directory="DesktopFolder"
                    Advertise="yes" Icon="icon.exe"
                    Name="!(bind.Property.ProductName)" />
        </File>
      </Component>
    </ComponentGroup>
  </Fragment>
</Wix>

In above code sample, we “Add Desktop Shortcut”.

For this we use <Shortcut> tag.

Please see below 👇🏻 code for reference.

After adding <Shortcut> tag, we define some properties of <Shortcut> tag.

Please see below list of properties for <Shortcut> tag.

Property Name	Property Description
`Id`	Identifier for this tag, by which we can refer to this tag.
`Directory`	Special Id, which define Directory where we want to show our shortcut.
`Advertise`	Boolean variable which decide we want to advertise this shortcut or not.
`Icon`	Id of Icon image. Please note that this is Id “NOT source of icon image”.
`Name`	Name of Icon which we want to show with Icon image.

Values we used in our code.

Property Name	Value Used	Value Comment
`Id`	`DesktopShortCut`	Id which I give.
`Directory`	`DesktopFolder`	Special Id for Desktop Folder. Since we want to create Desktop Shortcut.
`Advertise`	`yes`	Always ‘Yes’ since this is the easy way.
`Icon`	`icon.exe`	Reference to Id of image in `Package.wxs` file.
`Name`	`!(bind.Property.ProductName)`	Bind of Shortcut name to Product Name.s

[Build] Solution

Now we need to build solution as shown below.

After building solution we need to go to folder where MSI is created.

Please see below 👇🏻 image for reference.

Final Result

Run the MSI to install application.

Below image show final result after running installation.

That’s it!!!

Hope this post helps you.

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Till then, Happy learning!!!