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Visual Studio Tools for Office announcement

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    Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012: Now Available with Office 2013 and .NET Framework 4.5 support
    Michael Zlatkovsky (MSFT) Microsoft Employee

    I'm pleased to announce that the official Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012 is now available to download! For VSTO developers, this release brings .NET 4.5 support and design-time support for Office 2013, along with general design-time enhancements and bug fixes to the VSTO Runtime (released separately a few months ago via our download center and Windows Update; see KB 2796590 for information regarding the Runtime). We also heard your feedback from "Preview 2" of the tools, including the request to bring back the VSTO Runtime Bootstrapper into VS 2012 -- it is now back in the product.

    Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012 also includes tooling for the new apps for Office and apps for SharePoint projects, improvements to SharePoint Workflows, and more. You can read the official announcement for apps-related tooling on Soma’s blog post.

    Office 2013 support

    VSTO Office 2013 design-time support in Visual Studio 2012.

    Note: Now that's we've added .NET 4.5 support to 2013, we've properly re-categorized the templates in the "New Project" dialog according to the .NET framework version that they support. So, if you're looking for the Office 2010 templates after installing the latest tools, be sure to adjust the ".NET Framework" dropdown to ".NET Framework 4.0". Again, to recap, both the 2010 and 2013 templates support .NET Framework 4.0, but only the 2013 templates support .NET Framework 4.5 -- and the "New Project" dialog respects that categorization.

    VS 2012 New Project dialog

     

    I hope you enjoy using our new tools! If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

    - Michael Zlatkovsky | Program Manager, Visual Studio Tools for Office & Apps for Office


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    Roadmap for Apps for Office, VSTO, and VBA
    Michael Zlatkovsky (MSFT) Microsoft Employee
    Many folks have been asking about the emerging "apps for Office" model, and what it means for the future of VSTO.  Rest assured that VSTO continues to be alive and well.  In fact, many existing automation scenarios continue to be best served by VSTO for now.  At the same time, there are many exciting opportunities to look forward in apps for Office: for example, the ability to better integrate with web content and JavaScript/CSS libraries, support for host applications beyond the desktop versions of Office, and new distribution and monetization opportunities through the Office Store.
     
    To learn more, please see the blog post:  "Roadmap for Apps for Office, VSTO, and VBA".
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    Documentation for Office 2013 Ribbon controls now available
    Cindy Meister MVP MVP

    I know the documentation for Office 2013 is still somewhat limited, but hopefully the following link will help.

    Microsoft Office Document: [MS-CustomUI2] Supporting Documentation - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=727

    From here, you should be able to download the *.txt files for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus the imageMso information. Once a file is downloaded, it can be opened in Excel to make it easier to look through all the controls.

    Best Regards,
    Nathan O.
    Microsoft Online Community Support

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    VS2012 & Office2010 solutions: Add-ins disable / Customization could not be loaded
    Cindy Meister MVP MVP

    We had discovered an issue where add-ins deployed using the ClickOnce method will, under certain conditions, try and fail to install an update, and thereby disable the add-in.  For document-level customizations, an exception window with a stack trace may be shown; for application-level add-ins, the add-in will be disabled silently.  See the thread http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsto/thread/495098f8-6364-443a-b2e1-23e650af7e1e.

    There is now a NEW VERSION of the VSTO Runtime that fixes the issue.  If you're using the web bootstrapper (for add-ins developed using Visual Studio 2010), the bootstrapper will automatically chain in the latest version, so no action is required on your part, or on that of your users.  If you're deploying from Visual Studio 2012,  you'll need to enable the bootstrapper functionality manually:  please see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vsto/archive/2012/12/21/creating-a-bootstrapper-package-for-an-office-2013-vsto-add-in-with-visual-studio-2012.aspx.  Users can also download the latest runtime from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=140384.

    Installing the new Runtime is a preventative measure, and we highly recommend that all of your users do so!  However, this will not fix add-ins that may already have gotten disabled due to the issue.  Thus, for users who are already impacted:

    If the install location is still accessible (and/or if the developer puts a new version into the same location)
    1. Re-run setup from the original network share. 
    2. Re-enable the Add-In / Doc-Level Customization from within the Office application, as described below.

    If the install location is NOT accessible (e.g., network share permanently down, or file was installed off of a USB stick which has since been removed)
    1. Launch “regedit.exe” from the start menu / start screen.  Navigate to Computer ==> HKEY_CURRENT_USER ==> Software ==> Microsoft ==> VSTA ==> Solutions.
    2. There should be several entries there, identified by GUIDs.  Click on each entry and check the “ProductName” data until you find the Add-In that you’re trying to re-enable.
    3. For the Add-In that’s having problems, double-click on UpdateEnabled.
    4. Change the “Value data” to 0 and press “OK”.  This will disable Update Checking (and hence cure the problem) until a new version of an add-in is explicitly installed, or until the user repeats the same steps, and sets “UpdateEnabled” to “1”.


    After editing the Registry, the user should re-launch the Office App (e.g., Excel), and go through the usual steps of re-enabling the add-in (see below).

    The usual steps of re-enabling the add-in: (required in either case for any user with currently-disabled add-ins)
    1. Open the application’s options (e.g., “Excel Options”) and navigate to the Add-Ins tab.
    2. Select “COM Add-ins” from the “Manage” dropdown.
    3. Press “Go…”.  A window will open.
    4. Enable the checkbox for the Add-In(s) that you’d like to re-enable.
    5. Click “OK”.




    After performing the above steps, the add-in / document-level customization should re-activate in the host application, and also show up in the Control Panel’s “Add or Remove Programs” list.

    Michael Zlatkovsky | Program Manager, Visual Studio Tools for Office & Apps for Office



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