WiX v3.6 Beta released.

# by Rob Mensching on Monday, October 24, 2011 10:02 AM

tags: wix,

If I was a Microsoft executive I would start off by saying I'm super-excited to announce the release of the WiX v3.6 Beta. But I'm not. I'm just your friendly local WiX toolset benevolent dictator saying that WiX v3.6 is looking pretty good and we'd like to try it out. While Wix36.exe downloads, let's talk a little bit about what's in WiX v3.6 Beta and what is not.

First and foremost, Burn--the brand new WiX toolset bootstrapper/chainer/downloader--is coming along extremely well. All of the features we planned are working and we added a couple features along the way. Here's a quick list off the top of my head:

Modern UI - (planned) create a UI that isn't limited to Wizard'97 controls.
Download - download files from the Internet and resume if there are interruptions.
Unified Progress - Burn aggregates download and install messages into single progress (as well as individual progress)
Elevation - (planned) elevate only when necessary giving the best launch experience.
Containers - (planned) organize your product for optimal distribution based on your media.
Managed UI - (stretch) use managed code (think WPF or WinForms) to create a beautiful installation UI, even if NETFX isn't already installed on the user's machine.
Package Ref-counting - (added) Burn manages shared packages so they are installed and uninstalled when expected.
Patch slipstreaming - (added) Burn can automatically determine the minimal number of packages and patches a user has to install to be current.

That's a lot of good stuff and I'm sure I'm forgetting some cool features.

If you want to get an idea how good a Burn based install can look, download and launch the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview. It's only 1 MB, try it. What you see come up is Burn with the managed UI written in WPF by the Visual Studio team. IMHO, this is pretty close to the ideal installation experience (i.e. one button on the first page).

For those of you not interested in Burn, you'll be happy to know that we've fixed all known core toolset bugs. That means WiX v3.6 is better than the WiX v3.5 you're using right now.

Now this is Beta so there are still bugs to fix (in Burn). We're down to 20 known issues and hoping you'll jump into WiX v3.6 and help us flush out the issues we don't know about yet. Together we're sure to make this the best release of the WiX toolset ever.

PS: WiX v3.6 does not support "Visual Studio 11". We are waiting for their Beta release.

40 Comments

Comment by Alek Davis on Monday, October 24, 2011 11:12 AM

Nice job. Thank you! Can't wait to try it.

Comment by Dave on Monday, October 24, 2011 12:19 PM

Woohoo! *I* am super-excited about this release. Is there any documentation on Burn yet? I have a project in alpha stage right now and have used Wix 3.5 for the install, but before I release beta I need a bootstrapper for the C runtime libraries and a few other dependencies ... I'd love to use Burn but haven't been able to crack it yet. Thanks for all your work!

Comment by Yan Sklyarenko on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 12:02 AM

Congrats, Rob! That's really a long-expected milestone!

>> use managed code (think WPF or WinForms) to create a beautiful installation UI, even if NETFX isn't already installed on the user's machine

Wow! How is that possible? Can the same technique be applied to CA (run managed CA on a machine without .NET installed)? :)

Comment by Rob Mensching on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 8:36 AM

Dave, the WiX.chm (and thus our online manual) has a walkthrough to create your first Bundle. After that the WiX toolset code itself provides a good collection of example code as well.

Comment by Rob Mensching on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 8:44 AM

Yan, when you are outside of an installation transaction anything is possible. :) The same solution will not work for custom actions.

Maybe I'll write a blog entry about how the managed bootstrapper applications work.

Comment by Bill Campbell on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 8:41 AM

Loving Wix! Working on a bootstrapper project and am very excited about the possibilities. For those still trying to 'crack' Burn, here is a link describing how I got started (following advice from Rob and others).

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7840380/custom-wix-burn-bootstrapper-user-interface

Comment by Ben on Sunday, October 30, 2011 7:57 PM

I had some issues loading Wix36.exe.
The cause ended up being due to downloading it over the Internet and the file was marked as a potentially security problem. Solution: Right click the EXE, Properties, click Unblock.

I don't recall having so many problems with other software that I download. Can anything be done on your side to minimize this?

Comment by Rob Mensching on Sunday, October 30, 2011 8:03 PM

Ben, can you please file a bug? That is exactly the sort of issues we want to flush out with the Beta to get fixed. Thanks.

Comment by Darrel on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 6:10 AM

I commend you on your work. Burn is a nice addition. It would be really nice to see proper visual studio integration get some attention. Heat isn't very usable for maintaining install components and their related GUIDs. It's a very unfriendly command line tool, the documentation is not clear about how to properly manage GUIDs. The developer experience has a long way to go to be comparable to the existing setup and deployment tools. I feel it really hinders community adoption.

Comment by Andreas on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 7:31 AM

Hello,
I'm currently trying to make a multiplatform (x64 and x86) msi-package. Unfortunaly, there seems to be no way to integrate x64 Components(with Registry-Entries) within an x86 installer. The Problem is that Registry Entries are writen in the Wow6432Node Root. I need to regedit the Entries in the normal 64 Bit Registry structure. Is there the posibility to to that with WiX 3.6 or do I need to realize the Registries Entries with an Custom Action?
Regards, Andreas

Comment by Gerhard on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 9:50 AM

I used version 3.5, jumped over to the new 3.6 thread from starting it. WiX is my best tool to build installations.
Thanks to all developers!

Comment by Scott on Thursday, November 17, 2011 7:01 AM

Must say I'm not impressed. The Wix3.6 installer exe launches with a butt-ugly UI. It has clickable links to a bunch stuff on the web.. but all the links are broken. Pressing the install button results in a 5 second pause while displaying a progress bar that goes nowhere, followed by the message "Failed to install". Then we have the option to "Try Again" (fails every time) or "Close". There is no additional error information whatsoever, nothing in the event log, etc.
Perhaps WiX 3.6 can be used to make installers that actually work... if so, please demonstrate it.

Comment by Matt on Friday, November 18, 2011 7:38 AM

Been using 3.5 and it has been GREAT! Just saw that 3.6 beta was released and has a couple features I could REALLY use, but it will not install; I have the exact same situation as Scott.

Comment by Tom on Saturday, November 19, 2011 5:20 AM

I got the same condition as Scott!

Comment by Bill Campbell on Wednesday, November 23, 2011 8:03 AM

Rob, what is the best way to communicate issues found in the beta. For example I've found that Burn variables don't seem to be resolved within InstallConditions for packages. Also I don't see a way to specify a bundle as 'Per Machine'.

Thanks,
Bill

Comment by Les Thaler on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 5:10 PM

Install is failing for me too. The problem reported in the log is [1164:11F8][2011-11-29T17:39:30]: Download engine HTTP 404 HEAD to http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/data/ProjectAggregator2.msi
[1164:11F8][2011-11-29T17:39:30]: Error 0x80070002: Failed to send request to URL: http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/data/ProjectAggregator2.msi

I've seen this reported elsewhere. Problems w/ sourceforge?

Comment by Rob Mensching on Thursday, December 1, 2011 4:30 PM

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you all. Life is very "full" now.

Asking questions on wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net and filing bugs is the best way to provide feedback on the WiX v3.6 Beta. All open bugs will be addressed before WiX v3.6 is declared "stable".

For example, the failing install of the Beta for some people was tracked by bug: 3431848. I have just addressed that bug by re-uploading the ProjectAggregator2.msi. Hopefully SF will not disable our website again.

PS: the WiX UI is ugly because I designed it. If you can provide better looking XAML, please send start a conversation on wix-users. :)

Comment by Allen Feinberg on Monday, December 5, 2011 8:59 AM

Any word on TFS integration with Team Build?

Comment by Rob Mensching on Monday, December 5, 2011 11:14 PM

Allen, the WiX toolset has supported TFS and Team Build since v3.0 when we standardized our project files on MSBuild.

Comment by Ludger Styra on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 8:49 AM

After installing WiX 3.6 the integration in Visual Studio 9.0 works no more.
When I try to deinstall it says uninstall failed...

Manually removed the install, but now, the Visual Studio integration will even fail for WiX 3.5 with the error:

".wixproj cannot be opened..."

Comment by Brian Ekins on Friday, December 16, 2011 2:31 PM

Rob, I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Burn. Thanks for your efforts and I'm looking forward to getting some time to start playing with it.

Comment by Jeff Reagen on Monday, January 9, 2012 11:55 AM

Is WiX available under some license other than CPL?

Comment by Blair Murri on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 9:40 AM

@Jeff
I'm curious. What about the CPL is problematic for you? What kind of license would work better?

Comment by Andy on Monday, January 30, 2012 1:25 PM

Hi Rob,

First I just wanted to say thank you for your efforts with WIX and for your support of the open source community (and pioneering that movement for a company as big as Microsoft) - well done and keep up the excellent work!

I am currently using version 3.6 beta (mainly because the addition of localized portuguese support) and was wondering if you have any updates on the progress of releasing a stable version of 3.6?

Thanks again man, you rock! :)

Comment by RickHantz on Monday, March 5, 2012 3:21 PM

Any update on availability of WiX for VS v11 beta?

Comment by Serge on Thursday, March 8, 2012 9:13 AM

+1 for VS v11 support. Any news?

Comment by Harry on Friday, March 9, 2012 12:54 AM

+2. Would be really helpful to know about support time line for VS11

Comment by Rob Mensching on Saturday, March 10, 2012 8:53 AM

VS11 is already supported in latest build of WiX toolsert. Another official release (Beta2? RC1?) will be out very soon.

Comment by tim on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 3:07 AM

.chm file should be updated to indicate that Harvest is no longer working in 3.6

Comment by roman on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 6:34 AM

Wix36.exe installer doesn't work for me. Bug was registred, (one of them, have failed on two machines with many different configurations). As I predict because of slow connection to sourceforge.. Huge wasting of time anyway.. Why it is impossible to give all in one if you cant establish good network install option?

Comment by John Richardson on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 5:43 AM

Hi Rob,

I'm leading an effort at Symantec to drive the adoption of ISO standard tagging across our products. We have tags shipping three products and currently follow very manual processes that won't scale until tools support adding tags. I understand the latest version of the Wix installer, which many of our teams use, has some tagging support. However, it does not meet our requirements as we are implementing to cross publisher standards developed and agreed to by TagVault.org members. With Microsoft announcing broad support of tags and their joining the non-profit TagVault.org, I'm hoping that the Wix tool will begin to release additional tagging support that will enable publishers to deliver tagging conformant to implementation standards established by members of TagVault.org. Consistency of tagging across publishers is critical and now with Microsoft formally supportve of this direction, I'd like to the Wix installer updated very soon with additional capabilities that would allow me to scale up our efforts at Symantec. What is the process for engaging the Wix team on the roadmap? Thank you.

Regards,

John

Comment by John Richardson on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 5:49 AM

BTW, I gave a presentation at a recent software id conference that is posted on the TagVault.org website (see below). The Microsoft and Department of Homeland Security presentations would also be of interest to you.

Regards,

John

www.tagvault.org/2012_summit_results

Comment by SHYAM GEORGE on Friday, June 15, 2012 11:01 AM

how can i install php5.3.14 using wix36

Comment by Adam on Sunday, August 19, 2012 7:32 AM

Now that Visual Studio 2012 is in RTM will you be working to release a 3.6 build that supports Visual Studio 2012 sometime soon? We are very eager to upgrade!!

Comment by Rob Mensching on Sunday, August 19, 2012 8:33 AM

Adam, recent builds of Wix v3.6 already support VS 2012. Also, WiX v3.6 is almost done: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2012/8/6/WiX-Toolset-v3.6-nears-completion

Comment by Wil van den Meijdenberg on Monday, August 27, 2012 2:47 AM

Hi,
when can we expect a released Wix3.6 version?
We need the bootstrapping but we want use released ( stable ) version.

thx, Wil

Comment by Karlton on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 3:42 PM

Is there another link we can use to see what 'Burn' is like. The 'Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview' link is dead.

Comment by Rob Mensching on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 7:35 PM

Wil, WiX v3.6 is only a week out: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2012/8/6/WiX-Toolset-v3.6-nears-completion

Comment by Rob Mensching on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 7:36 PM

Karlton, grab any version of VS2012 to see the Burn in action. The VS2012 Express versions are free.

Comment by Adam K on Friday, September 28, 2012 7:40 AM

I understand WIX works with team build, but I cannot see any place for it to import the MSBUILD (VS2010) environment variables the way the C++ compiler does. The "Build Process file (Windows Workflow XAML)" defines drop locations and other variables that are used by MSBUILD, but hidden from the .WXS build. Or am I missing something?

RobMensching.com /Blog because setup isn't just xcopy

WiX v3.6 Beta released.

40 Comments