Registering a COM server with WiX

Question

I have been trying to determine a best case solution for registering a COM server using WiX to create a Windows Installer package and am struggling.

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Answer 1

Read "Do not use the SelfReg and TypeLib tables" at:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb204770#no_selfreg

For WiX, take a look at the Component element in the schema reference at:

http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/xsd/wix/component.html

Take notice of certain child elements such as AppId, Class, ProgId, Registry and so on. The proper technique is to use COM extraction to reflect the registration information and emit it declaratively into your installer so MSI can take care of it for you without going out of process to some code (like DllRegisterServer()) that could fail and also not provides MSI insight into the footprint of the component from a repair and advertisement perspective.