Windows Installer XML Toolset (WiX, pronounced "wicks") is a

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

toolset that builds

Windows Installer Windows Installer (msiexec.exe, previously known as Microsoft Installer, List of Microsoft codenames, codename Darwin) is a software component and application programming interface (API) of Microsoft Windows used for the Installation (computer ...

packages from

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

. It consists of a command-line environment that developers may integrate into their build processes to build MSI and MSM packages. WiX was the first

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

project to be released under an

open-source license Open-source licenses are software licenses that allow content to be used, modified, and shared. They facilitate free and open-source software (FOSS) development. Intellectual property (IP) laws restrict the modification and sharing of creative ...

, the

Common Public License In computing, the Common Public License (CPL) is a free software / open-source software license published by IBM. The Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative have approved the license terms of the CPL. Definition The CPL has the stat ...

. It was also the first Microsoft project to be hosted on an external website. After its release in 2004, Microsoft has used WiX to package

Office 2007 Microsoft Office 2007 (codenamed Office 12) is an office suite for Windows, developed and published by Microsoft. It was officially revealed on March 9, 2006 and was the 12th version of Microsoft Office. It was released to manufacturing on Novemb ...

, SQL Server 2005,

Visual Studio 2005 Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including web site, websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development ...

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

, and other products. WiX includes Votive, a

Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including web site, websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development ...

add-in that allows creating and building WiX setup projects using the Visual Studio IDE. Votive supports

syntax highlighting Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that is used for programming language, programming, scripting language, scripting, or markup language, markup languages, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in differe ...

and

IntelliSense Code completion is an autocompletion feature in many integrated development environments (IDEs) that speeds up the process of coding applications by fixing common mistakes and suggesting lines of code. This usually happens through popups while typ ...

for source files and adds a WiX setup project type to Visual Studio.

History

WiX was the first

project to be released under an

, the

. Initially hosted on

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...

, it was also the first Microsoft project to be hosted externally. On June 6, 2010, WiX moved from SourceForge to CodePlex. On August 14, 2012, Microsoft transferred the WiX copyright to the Microsoft-sponsored Outercurve Foundation. At the same time, the license was changed from the

to the

Microsoft Reciprocal License The Shared Source Initiative (SSI) is a source-available software licensing scheme launched by Microsoft in May 2001. The program includes a spectrum of technologies and licenses, and most of its source code offerings are available for download aft ...

. On May 4, 2016, WiX was transferred to the .NET Foundation. Since Visual Studio 2012, the traditional setup project type has been removed from Visual Studio (available only as an extension since Visual Studio 2013). WiX is a recommended alternative.

Functions

WiX is a toolset designed to build Windows Installer (.msi) packages using the command line. It comes with the following tools: * Candle: compiles source files into

object files An object file is a file that contains machine code or bytecode, as well as other data and metadata, generated by a compiler or assembler from source code during the compilation or assembly process. The machine code that is generated is known a ...

* Light: combines object files into a .msi file * Lit: creates libraries that can be linked by Light.exe * Dark: decompiles a .msi file into WiX code * Heat: creates a WiX source file * Pyro: creates Patch files (.msp) without needing the Windows Installer SDK * Burn: coordinates dependency installer

References

External links

*
Interview with Rob Mensching of Microsoft's WiX Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wix C Sharp software Free and open-source software Free installation software Free software programmed in C++ Free software programmed in C Sharp Free software projects Microsoft development tools Microsoft free software Windows-only free software XML-based standards 2004 software

History

Functions

See also

References

External links