WiX Toolset

The WiX Toolset is the most powerful set of tools available to create your Windows installation experience. This repository contains the WiX Toolset code itself.

If you're new to WiX, check out our Quick Start to build your first installation package in just a few minutes.

Open Source Maintenance Fee

To ensure the long-term sustainability of this project, use of the WiX Toolset requires an Open Source Maintenance Fee. While the source code is freely available under the terms of the LICENSE, all other aspects of the project--including opening or commenting on issues, participating in discussions and downloading releases--require adherence to the Maintenance Fee.

In short, if you use this project to generate revenue, the Maintenance Fee is required.

To pay the Maintenance Fee, become a Sponsor.

Developing WiX

Prerequisites

Before building the WiX Toolset, ensure you have Visual Studio 2022 (17.8.2 or higher) with the following installed:

Workloads
ASP.NET and web development
.NET desktop development
Desktop development with C++

Individual components
.NET 6.0 Runtime (Long Term Support)
.NET Framework 4.7.2 SDK
.NET Framework 4.7.2 targeting pack
.NET Framework 4.6.2 targeting pack
ATL v143 - VS 2022 C++ x64/x86 build tools (Latest)
MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ ARM64/ARM64EC build tools (Latest)
MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ x64/x86 build tools (Latest)
Git for Windows

Also, download the latest nuget.exe command-line tool and place it in a directory on your path.

Getting started:

• Fork the WiX repository into your own GitHub repository
• Clone the WiX repository from your fork (git clone https://github.com/yourdomain/wix.git) into the directory of your choice

To build the WiX toolset:

• Start a VS2022 'Developer Command Prompt'
• Change directory to the root of the cloned repository
• Issue the command devbuild (or devbuild release if you want to create a release version)

Executing your newly built WiX toolset

• build\wix\Debug\publish\wix\wix --help (Change Debug to Release if you built in release mode)

Pull request expectations

• Pick an outstanding WiX issue (or create a new one). Add a comment requesting that you be assigned to the issue. Wait for confirmation.
• To create a pull request, fork a new branch from the main branch
• Make changes to effect whatever changed behavior is required for the pull request
• Push the changes to your repository origin as needed
• If the main branch has changed since you created your branch, rebase to the latest updates.
• If needed (ie, you squashed or rebased), do a force push of your branch
• Create a pull request with your branch against the WiX repository.

Additional information

• Web site: https://www.firegiant.com/wixtoolset/
• Documentation WiX Documentation
• Issue Tracker: GitHub Issues
• Discussions: WiX Toolset Discussions