WiX v7, HeatWave, and HeatWave Build Tools are released

Spring is here and warmer, wetter weather brings us new releases. First up is WiX v7, which we might've mentioned occasionally. As we love the opportunity to simultaneously ship software, we're also bringing out new releases of FireGiant's HeatWave and HeatWave Build Tools for your packaging fun.

WiX v7, HeatWave, and HeatWave Build Tools are released

WiX v7.0.0 is now available and along with it, fresh releases of HeatWave and for FireGiant customers, HeatWave Build Tools.

Our annual releases are working predictably well—and isn’t predictability an awesome, if unexciting, aspect of software? The WiX v7 cycle brought new features and fixes in v7.0.0-rc.1 and a few fixes in v7.0.0-rc.2 and even a couple in the last couple of weeks in v7.0.0 itself. That’s exactly how it’s supposed to work: Folks can pick up a usable release candidate, find and report bugs, and your favorite WiX developers fix them before release.

We’ve talked about the features and fixes in WiX v7 before and you can read more about them in the release notes.

Get started with WiX v7

Get started with an SDK-style .wixproj project:

<Project Sdk="WixToolset.Sdk/7.0.0">
</Project>

and a simple .wxs source file:

<Wix xmlns="http://wixtoolset.org/schemas/v4/wxs">
    <Package Id="Acme.HelloWorld" Name="HelloWorld" Version="7.0.0" Manufacturer="Acme">
        <Files Include="*" />
    </Package>
</Wix>

You can get the WiX v7 WiX MSBuild SDK, WiX .NET tool, or every last bit from the GitHub release.

HeatWave

HeatWave, FireGiant’s freely-available Visual Studio extension for WiX, is available with support for both WiX v7 and Visual Studio 2026. HeatWave now has just one entry on Visual Studio Marketplace that supports both Visual Studio 2022 and Visual Studio 2026 with one extension.

HeatWave Build Tools

HeatWave Build Tools, FireGiant’s tools and extensions for WiX, now support WiX v7, in addition to existing support for older versions of WiX. HeatWave Build Tools is a component of WiX Developer Direct, FireGiant’s commercial offering of support for WiX, including fixes and support from FireGiant’s WiX experts, including but not limited to yours truly.