Dynamically include files in MSI setup

Question

I am trying to deploy a bunch of files in a directory in my MSI setup. As the files will change frequently I don't want to add the files directly but rather have a way of automatically including all files from within a directory and deploy them to a certain location.

I am using a Visual Studio Setup Project.

Anybody know how/if this is possible?

Answer 1

I solved the problem by a workaround:

• Add a build action of packaging entire directory (could be filtered) to a ZIP file.
• Add a reference to an empty ZIP file to deployment project.
• Add a custom action to deployment project to extract the ZIP to destination folder.

It's simple and stable.