WiX v6.0.0-rc.2 is out

WiX v6.0.0-rc.2, the second and final release candidate of the second release of the new annual WiX release cadence, is now available for your packaging business and pleasure. Download it, use it—it's an easy job to switch from WiX v4 and WiX v5—and report any bugs you discover.

WiX v6.0.0-rc.2 is now available. The following issues were among those fixed, in addition to those in WiX v6.0.0-rc.1:

Issue	Description
1520	Address a 16-year-old feature request to support more stores for SSL certificates.
2691	Address a 14-year-old WixUI prettiness bug.
7622	Adds support “normal,” non-SNI SSL certificates in http.sys.
8135	Fixes a bug in WixInternalUIBootstrapperApplication so now the dialogs appear as buttons on the taskbar.
8685	Uses the new MSTest executable test runner and MSBuild traversal projects to build more WiX code in parallel. Faster builds make happy devs, especially when their name is Bob.
8882, 8939	Use a different approach to construct the default feature and add components to it.

Here’s what the release notes have to say:

WiX v6 is the second annual release since WiX v4. WiX v6 continues in the tradition of being intentionally highly compatible with its predecessor WiX v5—and by the transitive property of backward compatibility, with WiX v4 too. WiX v6 contains a number of fixes and enhancements of existing features, including those newly introduced in WiX v5.

Get started

Get started with an SDK-style .wixproj project:

<Project Sdk="WixToolset.Sdk/6.0.0-rc.2">
</Project>

and simple package code in a .wxs file:

<Wix xmlns="http://wixtoolset.org/schemas/v4/wxs">
    <Package Id="Acme.HelloWorld" Name="HelloWorld" Version="6.0.0" Manufacturer="Acme">
        <Files Include="*" />
    </Package>
</Wix>

and run

dotnet build

to build it.

Try using WiX v6 in your existing v4 and v5 projects and report any bugs so we have a chance to get them fixed before the release of WiX v6 on 5-April-2025. FireGiant customers: Ask any questions you have about WiX v6; you’re already supported and the FireGiant support team giggles with glee when they get questions about prereleases. (Note: FireGiant is a distributed company and none of us are typically in the same room at the same time, but I’m highly confident that at least some of our support team have indeed giggled with glee.)