tl;dr; What environment do I need to create my own UI?

First -  Please don't laugh if I'm asking silly questions.  I'm a Scala
developer working on the JVM.  I've been using WiX for a few months and
it's a great tool!   I was very happy to be able to use pure XML, and I
drive my builds through our Scala build tool.  It's been over 10 years
since I looked at anything .NET, although I did a bunch of C++ a few years
back.

Now, the background:   For our installer, we're aggregating a few
open-source MSIs into a "stack" exe installer.  The open-source MSIs should
be able to co-exist with the stack, in the sense that if someone installs
the OSS version, the "stack" should not replace it. I'm using WiX 3.6 for
this, and while setting it up was amazingly simple, the uninstall behavior
is confusing for users.

SO - what do I need to research/learn to make my own API?   Consider me a
total n00b when it comes to Windows technology.  I just need to find the
right person in the company to help me with this, or spend some money on
books.

Can I use freely available windows tools to compile?
Can I build things completely on the command-line?
Should I be looking into WPF?
I've started reading the WIndows Installer documentation.  Do I need to
know this to write my own UI?

I have also read through the entire help included in WiX 3.6.   It's pretty
helpful, but for writing extensions it just shows how to set up a C++
extern function for the DLL.   I'm not really sure what that function is
supposed to *do*.

Thanks!
- Josh Suereth
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