WiX

WiX v3.6 released.

It is my pleasure to announce that WiX toolset v3.6 is now officially declared Production/Stable. The final build number is v3.6.3303.0. You can download it from here.

WiX v3.6 delivers the much anticipated bootstrapper: Burn. I look back at my introductory blog post about Burn in 2009 and can’t help but be impressed. Every feature in that list exists now plus features like package reference counting, related bundles and support for software tagging (ISO/IEC 199770-2).

I also want to take a moment and thank the Visual Studio setup team. The partnership with Visual Studio benefited the WiX Toolset immensely by providing us the real world data to improve Burn’s reliability. Those improvements helped lead Visual Studio 2012 to the highest success rates of any version of Visual Studio. They also pushed us on those extra features that make Burn a really powerful bootstrapper/chainer technology.

But WiX v3.6 isn’t only about Burn.

Visual Studio 2012 support is in WiX v3.6. The new MediaTemplate element drastically simplifies cabinet creation and localization files can modify controls and dialogs as well as strings. Oh and almost 500 bugs were fixed making this the best WiX toolset ever.

We’re not slowing down either. WiX v3.7 is already underway and WiX v4 will be here before you know it. The Outercurve Foundation support is great (you’ll notice this is the first time a release of the WiX toolset was signed!) and we expect it’ll get even better.

Personally, I’m thrilled to have Burn out in a stable release of the WiX toolset. It’s been years in the making (literally) and I really look forward to seeing what you build with it.

So get out there and code! You know I am.