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VSTO 2010 Office 2010 Word Add-in Deployment

Well the title pretty much tells the tale. I have a VSTO 2010 Office 2010 Word Add-in and I need to build a deployment (not ClickOnce).

So far I have found one example that was different/ambiguous enough that my duplicating the steps failed.

I really need one or more good end to end tutorials and / or examples doing this.

Also please note that my target machine is running 64 bit Windows 7 and 32 bit Office 2010 Professional Plus.

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xenacode

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Howard Bash

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I have seen the first link at that one was for deploying an excel addin and it did not call out the prerequisites and tests for them that I would need. I tried building for a word add in using this but it failed.

I quess part of the problem is not knowing which group of assemblies are required and the particular pneumnonics that are used. For example in this link we have VSTORUNTIMEREDIST, OfficeRuntime, HASSHAREDPIA and [TARGETDIR].

Where are these defined? These magic strings are needed but where does one discover that other than hours of googling?

xenacode

I'm not sure I understand you. If you are using a VS setup project, you can select pre-requisites from a list - you'll need VSTO and .NET and, if you aren't embedding interop types, then Office PIA as well.

What happened when you tried to build a Word add-in - you say "it failed" but don't give details.

Howard Bash

ASKER

In the example in the first URL, there are values that need to be placed into several property pages in building the setup:

VSTORUNTIMEREDIST
OfficeRuntime
HASSHAREDPIA
[TARGETDIR]

Are these Windows Installer settings and is there some document that talks about such macros and the like?

As to how did it fail. I will see if I can get you a screen shot. Also, the addin does not want to be removed. I have done control panel add/remove program as well as running setup to remove and even the uninstall in the IDE. I run word and it appears to be gone (I also remove it there). If I then run the Addin Project, the addin reappears in all loads of word and again, I can delete it.

Note. I am not running setup (at least that I am aware of...) and causing the addin to be added again to word.

xenacode

Yes, they are codes that are understood by Windows Installer and I'm sure you can find a detailed explanation somewhere in Windows Installer documentation rather than VSTO documentation. The purpose of adding these is so your bootstrapper prevents installation if the pre-requisites are missing. This should just work as described in the article.

Bear in mind that the recommended method of installation for VSTO addins is ClickOnce and the complicated method described in this article is only to be used where ClickOnce is not possible e.g. where an add-in must be installed for all users or must run custom actions on installation. Are you certain you can't use ClickOnce?

Pete

Howard Bash

ASKER

The problem with clickonce for me is that it usually required some network share or URL and I need to be able to install in connected as well as unconnected modes.

Why does it need to locations to build this setup? I mean it's nice to have some FTP like capability to move files/folders however I don't need that baked into an IDE.

Can I make an addin click once setup only need one (or two if you must) of either local drives or network drive folders? It really seems that these entries want IIS involved in this.