What are the similarities and differences between VSTO and VSTA?

Question

What are the similarities and differences between VSTO and VSTA?

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Answer 1

Both differences and similarities exist between the Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) and the Visual Studio Tools for Office(VSTO). The comparisons are as follows:

Actually, the core difference is already indicated by their names.

 

*Visual Studio Tools for Office,

It is a Visual Studio Package that allows the developers to do and only do Office extensibility using the managed codes. If the Office application is the only application you want to extend, the VSTO fits your demand.

 

*Visual Studio Tools for Applications,

From its name, not only the Office application can be extended, but also your own applications developed using MFC or Windows Form can be extended. For example, let’s say that company A has made a software product named ShapeDraw. This product is popular in the market, so company A wants the other ISVs (Independent Software Vendor) to make Add-ins for the ShapeDraw, so company A uses VSTA to expose ShapeDraw's object model. Then ISV also uses VSTA and the exposed object model to do ShapeDraw extensibility. In the ISV's client view, ShapeDraw is just like Office and VSTA and is just like a managed VBA environment. We can even record and run a Macro of our actions in ShapeDraw using VSTA.
 

To get a better understanding on the description above about VSTA, please refer to the following article and video in the VSTA team blog, http://blogs.msdn.com/vsta/archive/2007/04/27/vsta-video-vsta-at-a-glance.aspx

 

From another article http://blogs.msdn.com/vsta/archive/2006/11/10/vsta-rtm-s-with-the-2007-office-system.aspx, we can see that the VSTA has released an integrated component of Office 2007. So, in this case, VSTA is very similar with VSTO at the functionality level, but at the UI level, it looks more like a VBA environment in Visual Studio.

(Related forum link, http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsto/thread/ad8ff437-916e-4b32-9d08-50a5e604777f/ )

For more FAQ about Visual Studio Tools for Office, please see Visual Studio Tools for Office FAQ

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