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In Visual Studio 2017's New Project dialog, there is no entry for Windows Installer XML (WiX).
Is it possible to enable WiX projects in Visual Studio 2017?
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In Visual Studio, open your solution, and add a WiX project to it: go to the Visual Studio main menu and click File -> Add -> New Project to open the Add New Project dialog. Choose the Setup Project item in the Windows Installer XML node, specify the project name and click OK.
The Visual Studio WiX toolset allows you to easily create WiX projects, edit WiX files using IntelliSense, and compile/link your project within the Visual Studio IDE. For WiX project types, see WiX Project Types. For WiX item templates, see WiX Item templates.
That way when running the MSI, a popup will be presented asking if you want to “Debug the program”. Click on this option and then choose the Visual Studio instance on which the custom action project is open on. The execution will stop at the break call (if not press F10) and you can start debugging.
Wix# allows building complete MSI setups from a deployment specification expressed with C# syntax. The typical Wix# source file for building MSI contains plain-vanilla C# code, which uses a C# class structure to define (mimic) WiX entities.
You can manually enable Visual Studio 2017 compatibility with WiX 3.10 or earlier:
Close all instances of Visual Studio.
CopyC:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\WiX toC:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\WiX
(In the destination path, replace "Enterprise" with "Professional" or "Community" depending on your edition.)
You may need to provide Administrator permission:
The result will look like this:
Copy C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX
Then execute the following command as Administrator:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\devenv" /setup
(Again, replace "Enterprise" with "Professional" or "Community" depending on your edition.)
When you open Visual Studio 2017, WiX 3.10 and earlier projects will be compatible.
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WiX v3.11.0.1507 provides full support for the VS 2017 Extension For WiX. The Release Notes provide insight into why it has taken so long to provide the extension and compatibility with the extension and older versions of WiX
Note: You can use the "WiX Toolset Visual Studio 2017 Extension" with previous versions of the WiX Toolset but there is a forwards compatibility issue when building managed custom actions that is only fixed in the WiX v3.11 RC release. In other words, if you have managed custom actions and you want to use VS 2017 then you must upgrade to WiX v3.11 RC.
Edit: The VS 2019 Extension is now available.
Edit: The VS 2022 Extension is now available.
The Wix Releases Page has links to the other extensions.
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