Nothing is hidden behind the XML code files.Īs to the behavior and features, many advanced features are not comprehensively documented, unfortunately. Everything is explicitly declared in XML code using some official documented XML scheme. Only WiX provide excellent compliance with the contemporary MSBuild and related XML-based project standard, so you can use WiX projects using standard MSBuild techniques: customize it, integrate with bigger master projects or solutions, write your own extensions, if you need some, and so on.Īlso, it has very good and smooth integration with Visual Studio of different versions.įinally, one big benefit is: WiX code is non-visual. Actually, if you use WiX, you will understand that the tools mentioned above are actually nearly illegal (technically), they are using their proprietary project files. It's not perfect too (and the whole Microsoft Installer and its API is well behind other technologies), but it is much better than anything I ever heard of so far. I recently made a migration to it and am very glad I did. My solution is using open-source WiX, the open-source installation toolset: And the setup project type bundled with many versions Visual Studio is not good, too Microsoft is getting rid of it without replacing it with anything else.

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