[SOLVED] Wix Installer Heat.exe error Parameter "exePath" is invalid

Wix Installer Heat.exe error Parameter "exePath" is invalid

I am building a self-contained .Net Core worker service which I run as a windows service. Now I want to create an installe using Wix, however when I try to harvest all the needed DLL's for installation I get the following error:

An error occurred loading a configuration file: The parameter 'exePath' is invalid.

I've read this post which states the heat.exe might be broken. But I downloaded the tools via NuGet (3.11.2) which should theoretically be fine. My Beforebuild target looks as following:

<Exec Command="dotnet publish ..\Parlando.PVS.PackingSlipService\Parlando.PVS.PackingSlipService.csproj -c $(Configuration) -r win10-x86" />
<ItemGroup>
  <LinkerBindInputPaths Include="%(ProjectReference.RootDir)%(ProjectReference.Directory)bin\$(Configuration)\%(ProjectReference.TargetFrameworkIdentifier)\win10-x86\publish" />
</ItemGroup>
<HeatDirectory 
DirectoryRefId="INSTALLFOLDER" 
OutputFile="$(ProjectDir)\HeatGeneratedFileList.wxs" 
Directory="..\Parlando.PVS.PackingSlipService\bin\Release\netcoreapp3.1\win10-x86\publish" 
ComponentGroupName="HeatGenerated" 
ToolPath="$(WixToolPath)" 
AutogenerateGuids="True" 
SuppressCom="True" 
SuppressRegistry="True" 
SuppressFragments="True" 
SuppressRootDirectory="True"
NoLogo="true"   />
<ItemGroup>
  <Compile Include="$(ProjectDir)\HeatGeneratedFileList.wxs" Condition="'%(ProjectReference.IsDotnetSDKProject)' == 'True'" />
</ItemGroup>

This should generate a .wxs file that I reference in the Product.wxs file when installing the service. My product.wxs does so as followed:

<ServiceInstall
      Id="ServiceInstaller"
      Type="ownProcess"
      Name="Parlando.PVS.PackingSlipService"
      DisplayName="Parlando.PVS.PackingSlipService"
      Description="Service installed by Parlando to create packingslips and invoices."
      Start="auto"
      Account="LocalSystem"
      ErrorControl="normal" />
    <ServiceControl
      Id="ServiceInstaller"
      Start="install"
      Stop="both"
      Remove="uninstall"
      Name="Parlando.PVS.PackingSlipService" />
  </Component>    
  <ComponentRef Id="HeatGenerated" />

How can i use the heat.exe in such a way that I can access the DLL list in my Product.wxs and install my service via MSI?

Solution

Apperantly this error has nothing to do with the provided settings for the Wix installer, but rather the machine that Wix is installed on.

After testing my program on a different machine, all worked fine.