How to Enable WiX Projects in Visual Studio 2017

visual-studio wix visual-studio-2017 wix3.10
Chris Schiffhauer picture Chris Schiffhauer · Apr 17, 2016 · Viewed 43.5k times · Source

In Visual Studio 2017's New Project dialog, there is no entry for Windows Installer XML (WiX).

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Is it possible to enable WiX projects in Visual Studio 2017?

Answer

Chris Schiffhauer picture Chris Schiffhauer · Apr 17, 2016

You can manually enable Visual Studio 2017 compatibility with WiX 3.10 or earlier:

  1. Close all instances of Visual Studio.

  2. Copy
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\WiX to
    C:\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.)

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    You may need to provide Administrator permission:

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    The result will look like this:

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  3. Copy C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX

  4. 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.)

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When you open Visual Studio 2017, WiX 3.10 and earlier projects will be compatible.

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