How to Enable WiX Projects in Visual Studio 2017

WiX v3.11.0.1507 provides full support for the VS 2017 Extension For WiX. The Release Notes provide insight into why it has taken so long to provide the extension and compatibility with the extension and older versions of WiX

Note: You can use the "WiX Toolset Visual Studio 2017 Extension" with previous versions of the WiX Toolset but there is a forwards compatibility issue when building managed custom actions that is only fixed in the WiX v3.11 RC release. In other words, if you have managed custom actions and you want to use VS 2017 then you must upgrade to WiX v3.11 RC.

Edit: The VS 2019 Extension is now available.

Edit: The VS 2022 Extension is now available.

The Wix Releases Page has links to the other extensions.

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.)

   

   You may need to provide Administrator permission:

   

   The result will look like this:

   

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.)

   

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

I found that I also had to copy the WiX folder from "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft". Without this, I got an error trying to load my WiX project that one of the MSBuild targets files couldn't be found.