Does VSTO 2010 support OfficeXP Add-in ?

Question

Hi ,

I want to create a Office Word XP (2002) Add in using software of VSTO 2010. 

Only Office 2007 and Office 2010 Word Add in provided.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Studio_Tools_for_Office

The above link said: VSTO supersedes developer version of Office XP for development.

Do you know where to download / install this runtime (part of VSTO) ?

Does Visual studio 2003 support Word XP add in ? Do I need to remove VS 2010 and re-install VS 2003 in order to create my Office XP add in ?

 

Thanks and best regards,

Via

Answer 1

Hello Via

No version of VSTO supports creating Add-ins for Office XP; VSTO was designed for Office 2003 and upwards. VSTO 2010 is designed to work with Office 2007 and Office 2010, only.

The quote from wiki is to be interpreted thusly: In Office XP a "Developer version" was offered that enabled the VBA developer to create COM Add-ins (not VSTO) using the IDTExtensibility2 interface. That was discontinued going forward, as the MSFT focus turned away from COM and towards .NET. But there was never any VSTO for Office XP.

You can create COM Add-ins for Office 2000 and later, using the Visual Studio "Shared Add-in" template. There are a lot of discussions and articles on how this can be done if you search the Internet. This kind of Add-in can be created with any version of Visual Studio, for any version of Office.

The VSTO technology makes creating Office Add-ins simpler, in that it takes care of a lot of the "plumbing". It builds on the same IDTExtensibility2 interface the "Shared Add-in" uses. But it is application- and version-specific (to guarantee that the VSTO add-in is going to work).

All that being said, it is apparently possible to create a VSTO add-in for Office 2003, using VS 2005 SE (an add-on for Visual Studio 2005). See the first message in this thread: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsto/thread/b2e56a5e-b7e1-4e1c-911d-b305faf8f633

 

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Cindy Meister, VSTO/Word MVP

Answer 2

Hello Cindy,

Many many thanks.... for your professional words. I am frustrated for several days . At first I did not know there was no version of VSTO supporting for creating Add-ins for OfficeXP. I kept finding where to download the OfficeXP runtime. Now,  I will try Visual Studio "Shared Add-in" template. I will search the articles in the Internet in this way.

Actually, I want to create a commandToolsBarButton under Tools menu (Word 2002). That button triggers a event that will open a new word document and close it immediately.

Thanks and best regards,

Via

Answer 3

Hi Via

You can create such a button directly in the Word UI (Tools/Customize) and link it with a Word macro (VBA). First save the file as a TEMPLATE (*.dot), then make sure you save the button in the template file (dropdown list in Tools/Customize/Commands)

Put this template in the user's STARTUP folder and Word will always load it when Word starts.

This is the simplest way to create an Add-in for Word.

For assistance with Shared Add-ins, I recommend the new General Office dev forum:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-us/officegeneral/threads

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Cindy Meister, VSTO/Word MVP

Answer 4

Hi Cindy,

Thank you.  Your method is the most easy one to deploy to users. Unfortunely, my boss said he wanted the button under Tools menu, not a button(drag and drop from customize/Commands/Macros) . In order to fulfil his requirement, so I want to make COM-Add-in.

Finally, he accepted "Word macro (VBA)" method. For study purpose, I want to know how to make a COM-Add-in .

Thanks and best regards,

Via

Answer 5

Hi Via

The button can certainly be in the Tools menu, even using the drag-and-drop technique. Just drag to the Tools menu, wait for a second until the menu drops down, then continue dragging to the position where you want the command...

As for creating a COM add-in for Office XP, please post in the forum to which I linked in my previous response. The discussion would be off-topic in the VSTO forum.

I also recommend you search the term "Shared Add-in" on MSDN and on the Internet to turn up articles and discussions on the topic.

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Cindy Meister, VSTO/Word MVP

Answer 6

Hi Cindy,

The button can really be dragged to the Tools menu. Thank you so much ^_^

I will search the term "Shared Add-in" on MSDN. Thanks.

Best regards,

Via