Manual Extraction of the XDK Payload

Manual extraction of the XDK is an option available to advanced users, enabling specific files to be integrated into a build system without installing the full XDK. After you download and extract the XDK, you can use Windows Installer (msiexec.exe) to extract the installer package to access its individual files.

Note

This process does not replace the need to install the XDK for most scenarios. The process enables the following scenarios:

1. Extracting headers and libraries for use in your build process
2. Extracting the Sideload folder so that xbprovision can be run from a given XDK without installing that full XDK

It may or may not be possible to run other XDK tools, but doing so isn’t officially supported so you may run into problems.

Tip The following procedure shows a specific use of Windows Installer (msiexec.exe); for more information about msiexec.exe, see Windows Installer on Dev Center.

To extract the contents of all XDK MSIs

1. Download the XDK installer from Xbox One XDK Software Downloads on the Xbox Game Developer (XGD) site.
   The downloaded file will have a name like DurangoXDK_04_2013.zip. Note its location on your computer.
   
2. Extract the contents of the local .zip file.
3. In a command prompt window, navigate to the folder with the extracted files from the .zip file, and run the following command line:
   

   for /F "delims=" %G in ('dir /b /s "installation_folder\*.msi"') DO (
   start /wait msiexec.exe /a "%G" TARGETDIR="msi_extraction_path" /qb
   )  
   

   where installation_folder is the path to the extracted files of the XDK download, and msi_extraction_path specifies the folder where you want the files of the Windows Installer (.msi) files to be extracted. For example:
   

   for /F "delims=" %G in ('dir /b /s "c:\downloads\XDK\*.msi"') DO (
   start /wait msiexec.exe /a "%G" TARGETDIR="c:\XDK" /qb
   )  
   

   Note If this snippet is used in a script instead of directly from the command line, the %G needs to be replaced with %%G.

4. Navigate to msi_extraction_path, and copy the extracted XDK files to the location required by your build system.