Introduction to WiX and the WiX Visual Studio package

What is WiX?

The Windows Installer XML (WiX) platform is a set of tools and specifications that allow you to easily create Windows Installer database files. The WiX tools model the traditional compile and link model used to create executables from source code. For WiX, source code is written in XML files. These files are validated against a schema, wix.xsd, then processed by a preprocessor, compiler, and linker to create the desired result. The WiX platform has been designed to allow for the easy creation of multiple Windows Installer databases from a small set of source files.

What is the WiX Visual Studio package?

The WiX Visual Studio package allows you to create WiX projects, to edit WiX source code using IntelliSense, and to build your project in the Visual Studio IDE.