Get started with WiX
There are three ways to use WiX v4:
Command-line .NET tool
WiX v4 is available as a .NET tool for your command-line pleasure.
The wix.exe
tool requires the .NET SDK, version 6 or later.
Wix.exe supports commands to perform particular operations. For example, the build
command lets you build MSI packages, bundles, and other package types.
To install the Wix.exe .NET tool:
dotnet tool install --global wix --version 4.0.0-rc.1
To verify Wix.exe was successfully installed:
wix --version
See also
MSBuild on the command line and CI/CD build systems
WiX v4 is available as an MSBuild SDK for building from the command line using dotnet build
from the .NET SDK or the .NET Framework-based MSBuild
from Visual Studio. SDK-style projects have smart defaults that make for simple .wixproj project authoring. For example, here's a minimal .wixproj that builds an MSI from the .wxs source files in the project directory:
<Project Sdk="WixToolset.Sdk/4.0.0-rc.1">
</Project>
See also
Visual Studio
FireGiant has released HeatWave Community Edition to support WiX v4 SDK-style MSBuild projects in Visual Studio. HeatWave supports:
- Conversion of WiX v3 projects and authoring
- Building of WiX v4 SDK-style projects
- Project and item templates
- Property pages to control how the project builds