Question: Using VSTO to package/deploy Outlook Add-Ins?

[Tadwick]

I posted this to an MSDN forum on VSTO and got no replies yet so hope you
don't mind me trying this forum. I'm new to add-ins and have not used VSTO
before. Can someone pls confirm my understanding of the following with
regard to VSTO and Outlook:

1. You can only deploy to Outlook 2003 (and later).

2. You have to ensure users have a number of prerequisites before they
install your VSTO-developed add-in:
- .NET 2.0
- Outlook 2003 SP 1
- Outlook 2003 Primary Interop Assemblies (redist)
- VSOT run time

3. You have to purchase VSTO ($550 for upgrade).

So, aside from the loss of backward compatibility with pre 2003 versions of
Outlook and the purchase cost (which is very unfortunate given that I've
already paid $550 for VS Pro), are there other cons to using VSTO? I
thought I read that users also have to be running Office _Professional_ to
get VSTO solutions to work - is this true? Does VSTO make it very easy to
transform VBA code to a professional deployable solution that will cause
users/admin minimum fuss to deploy?

Thanks

Tad

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Office Professional and you must make sure that your distribution sets the
security for the VSTO addin to trusted on the target machines.

Conversion of code from VBA to VB.NET can be relatively straight-forward
depending on your code, but it also can take a lot of manual conversion that
no VB --> VB.NET converter can handle. Things like the redefinition of Long
to 64 bit and Integer to 32 bit are just the beginning of the
incompatibilities.

See http://www.outlookcode.com/vsto/index.htm for lots of information on
VSTO.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Saw some interesting test results yesterday from someone who got his VSTO add-in to install on Outlook from Office Basic, on Outlook standalone, and on Outlook from Office Pro.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

Office Professional and you must make sure that your distribution sets the
security for the VSTO addin to trusted on the target machines.

Conversion of code from VBA to VB.NET can be relatively straight-forward
depending on your code, but it also can take a lot of manual conversion that
no VB --> VB.NET converter can handle. Things like the redefinition of Long
to 64 bit and Integer to 32 bit are just the beginning of the
incompatibilities.

See http://www.outlookcode.com/vsto/index.htm for lots of information on
VSTO.

--
Ken Slovak
[MVP - Outlook]
http://www.slovaktech.com
Author: Absolute Beginner's Guide to Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
Reminder Manager, Extended Reminders, Attachment Options
http://www.slovaktech.com/products.htm

I posted this to an MSDN forum on VSTO and got no replies yet so hope you
don't mind me trying this forum. I'm new to add-ins and have not used VSTO
before. Can someone pls confirm my understanding of the following with
regard to VSTO and Outlook:

1. You can only deploy to Outlook 2003 (and later).

2. You have to ensure users have a number of prerequisites before they
install your VSTO-developed add-in:
- .NET 2.0
- Outlook 2003 SP 1
- Outlook 2003 Primary Interop Assemblies (redist)
- VSOT run time

3. You have to purchase VSTO ($550 for upgrade).

So, aside from the loss of backward compatibility with pre 2003 versions
of Outlook and the purchase cost (which is very unfortunate given that
I've already paid $550 for VS Pro), are there other cons to using VSTO? I
thought I read that users also have to be running Office _Professional_ to
get VSTO solutions to work - is this true? Does VSTO make it very easy to
transform VBA code to a professional deployable solution that will cause
users/admin minimum fuss to deploy?

Thanks

Tad

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

I saw a post about that but I haven't tested it and don't have those
versions installed around here anywhere to play with. It might wok OK but
it's certainly unsupported.

Have you played with it at all?




Saw some interesting test results yesterday from someone who got his VSTO
add-in to install on Outlook from Office Basic, on Outlook standalone, and
on Outlook from Office Pro.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Tadwick]

Ken and Sue,

Thanks for the replies - can you tell me where this was posted?

Tx

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

It was posted in microsoft.public.developer.outlook.addins. The thread was
"Outlook 2003 add-in".

 

[Tadwick]

Thanks, Ken and for pointing me to yet another forum for add-ins !