Portable WixEdit

Made as the portable edition of WixEdit, this is a practical text editor for modifying the XML source code for Windows installer files (MSI). It can be used by anyone curious enough to study this information and generate their own MSI and MSM setup packages. It requires the Windows Installer XML Compiler.

Since installation is not required, you can save the program files to any location on the HDD and just click the EXE item to launch WixEdit. There is also the option to copy it to a USB flash disk and run it directly on any PC with Windows Installer XML Compiler set up.

More importantly, the utility does not add new entries to the Windows registry or create extra files on the HDD without your consent, so no traces are left behind after removing it.

The GUI is user-friendly, made from a normal window with a neatly organized layout, where you can open MSI, MSM, XML and WXS-formatted files, in order to navigate the global section, files, properties, dialogs, resources, actions and tables.

It is possible to create new attributes, delete existing ones and examine their properties, import external XML files into properties, dialogs, resources, actions and tables, execute action sequences, and so on.

The project can be saved to file and resumed at a later time. You can undo and redo actions, use a search function when dealing with large amounts of data, add files, folders and features to install, build, install and uninstall MSI setup packages, as well as launch the default text editor.

WixEdit can be asked to ignore specific files and directories, allow include changes and backup changed includes. You can also modify the default external XML editor, template directory and WIX binaries location, specify the XML indentation, use relative or absolute paths, display the full path in the title bar, allow multiple instances, and wrap words in the results panel.

There were no kind of stability issues throughout our evaluation, since WixEdit did not hang, crash or pop up error dialogs. It had minimal impact on computer performance, running on low CPU and RAM. To sum it up, WixEdit is a resourceful, yet easy-to-use application for investigating the XML source code of Windows installer files.