FAQ

In WiX v3, Light automatically runs validation-- Windows Installer Internal Consistency Evaluators (ICEs) --after every successful build. Validation is a great way to catch common authoring errors that can lead to service problems, which is why it’s now run by default. Unfortunately, there’s a common issue that occurs on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 that can cause ICEs to fail. For details on the cause and how to fix it, see Heath Stewart's Blog and Aaron Stebner's WebLog.

What's New in WiX v3?

• Improved standard UI library with much strong customization story
• Wixlibs, binary wixlibs
• Overridable sequencing
• Standard UI support
• Support for arbitrary binary columns
• Support for all MSI 4.0 features (WiX 2.0 cannot support MsiPatchCertificate yet, for example)
• Simpler extension model for adding custom tables or other authoring constructs (both compiler and decompiler support)
• Extension model for binding of files and cabinet creation (to allow for custom logic to find files and cache cabinets)
• WiX variables (for creating variables that are resolved right before msi/msm files are created)
• Better localization model
• Much better support for merge module errors and warnings
• Standard NAnt and MSBuild tasks
• ComponentGroups/FeatureGroups for creating collections of components and components/features/merges
• Serialization/deserialization classes on top of the WiX schema to allow for fast, type-safe creation of WiX source files (used heavily by the decompiler)
• Auto-generation of short file names (apparently this is a major improvement for lots of people)
• Lots of smaller features which allow for the tweaking of specific compiler, linker, decompiler, etc. behaviors (see usage info for each tool)
• Lots and lots and lots of bug fixes
• Heat - new tool for quickly capturing self-registration, typelib keys, assembly install info, websites, files, and directories into WiX authoring
• Smoke - new tool for running MSI validation
• Built-in MSI validation when running light
• Patch creation support (soon)
• ClickThrough
• Re-written decompiler (dark) is now fully extensible for handling custom tables easily
• Support localization of control sizes and positions
• Multi-threaded cabinet creation (for greater performance building multi-cab setups on multi-proc machines)
• DiskId optional for specifying files on Media 1
• Binary wixout files for allowing final MSI creation to occur delayed or on a different machine
• Long filename support for all COM registration
• Better error messages for missing references
• IntelliSense support for extension schemas via XsdStitch
• Mutator for converting registry keys into strongly typed COM elements (great for catching COM authoring bugs)
• Cleanup intermediate file formats to ensure support for future versions of Windows Installer (and prevent us from needing to touch the intermediate formats ever again)
• Lots more in the works surrounding specific scenarios like making ActiveX, Office plugin, and isolated application installations a lot easier
• Brand new version of Votive. Even if you don't use Votive as the UI for your development, it's still worth noting that the .wixproj file format is MSBuild compliant now in case your team uses MSBuild to build.