Changing the file extension of WiX extensions from .dll to .wixext (Revisited)

MSDN Blog Postings » Changing the file extension of WiX extensions from .dll to .wixext (Revisited)

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:39:41 GMT

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re: Changing the file extension of WiX extensions from .dll to .wixext (Revisited)

DM — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:26:07 GMT

Can't you use a double "dot" extension like "*.wixext.dll" ?

re: Changing the file extension of WiX extensions from .dll to .wixext (Revisited)

jrock — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:02:16 GMT

That's a great idea. However, at that point, it's more of a convention than a file extension. The OS just looks at the last part (.dll) and will ignore the .wixext part. We won't get a lot of the benefits that I pointed out in my last blog. Right now we use the convention WixXExtension.dll where X is something like IIs, NetFx, Office, etc. which is essentially what you're proposing.

If I'm missing something, though (which is entirely probable), please point it out!

Thanks for posting.

re: Changing the file extension of WiX extensions from .dll to .wixext (Revisited)

DM — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:02:13 GMT

Hi Justin,

Your Wix?Extension convention makes extension files look like this:

WixIIsExtension.dll

WixNetFxExtention.dll

What I'm proposing is something like:

IIs.wixext.dll

NetFx.wixext.dll

If I build myself a collection of extensions they could look like:

MyDMTools.wixext.dll

MyOtherTools.wixext.dll

Another example, to search for all Wix Extensions you could use a syntax like this (sorry for my old DOS heritage):

dir ?:\ *.wixext.dll /s

A double dot extension may not be as useful as changing the .dll extension completely but it sure looks a lot more dicoverable to me.

HTH

re: Changing the file extension of WiX extensions from .dll to .wixext (Revisited)

Eric — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 10:39:56 GMT

Yup. Then your dialog box filter can be *.wixext.dll