Package and deploy outlook ComAddin to several systems in the organization.

[Yahya Saad]

Dear All,

I have developed a Com Addin to serve outlook 2000 and would like to
deploy it to several computers in my organization through group policy.
First, how can I package it, should I take the .dll file and place it in
a certain location and register it, if so how and were.
Second, I would like to oblige the load of that com addin and restrict
the removal of this com addin.
Third, how would the updates to this com be deployed.

Thank you very much.
Yahya Saad

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

You don't say which platform you developed your addin with.

If it's one that provides the old Package and Deployment Wizard you can
package with that, which produces a deployment package for you. It doesn't
support in place updates very well however so you usually have to uninstall
before you install an update. It also produces fairly large packages and
isn't very intelligent about what dependencies it includes in the package so
you get all sorts of things like the VB runtimes being packaged and
installed when they aren't needed.

Using that you end up with a setup.exe program that installs everything for
you. You also get a subfolder of CAB files that are installed. If you used a
designer to set up your COM addin then the DLL will register itself
correctly when installed.

I prefer to use a Windows Installer packager, it's got better options and
produces smaller packages. It's also easier to set up needed dependencies
and supports in place updates based on versioning. There's a basic Windows
Installer packager included with VS 6 but you have to do most everything
manually with it. Downloading Orca (a tool from Intel) to use with it makes
things somewhat easier. I use InstallShield to produce my packages, which is
really easy and isn't that expensive if you intend to produce more than one
installer over time.

Restricting the user from uninstalling the application should be possible
although I've never investigated it, but it would be against Windows
application guidelines and I'd recommend against it.