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Will a VSTO add-in developed with VS 2008 / .NET 3.5 for Office 2007 install and run with Office 2010? RRS feed

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    This sounds like an obvious question, but I didn't manage to find a clear answer to it, so here it is. I developed an add-in for Excel 2007, using VS 2008, targeting .NET 3.5, with the VSTO runtime 3.0; the deployment is done through msi.

    My question is the following: should I expect that add-in to install and run for an Office 2010 user, with the VSTO 3.0 runtime installed? Specifically, is it sufficient to keep the Office 2007 PIAs as a prerequisite, or are the Office 2010 PIAs required, and should the installer be changed?

    Thanks in advance for any input,

    Mathias

    Friday, September 17, 2010 3:50 AM

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    The add-in will run, but you will probably have to change the installer.

    If you created the installer by using these instructions, you might be checking only for the Excel 2007 component ID. If this is the case, you'd need to modify the installer using the Office 2010 component IDs listed in http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsto/thread/9bde5b41-f5da-4918-b62b-8ab24479ef93. I believe these should also be provided in the sample that accompanies this technical article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsto/ff937654.aspx.

    Office 2010 includes the Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office runtime components required to run VSTO add-ins that target the .NET Framework 3.5. These runtime components can load/run add-ins that target the VSTO v3 runtime. Therefore, if your installer does a pre-req check fo the VSTO v3 runtime and then stops the installation if this runtime version is not installed, you'll probably need to change that behavior too. Office 2010 applications always use the Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office runtime, not the VSTO v3 runtime.

    In addition, the Office 2010 PIAs must be installed (rather than the Office 2007 PIAs) for add-ins that target the .NET Framework 3.5. The Office 2010 PIAs are installed automatically in the default setup experience, but users can choose to opt out of installing the PIAs, so you'll probably want to include them in your installer as well. The Office 2010 PIA bootstrapper package is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=5d57c998-b630-4f38-afaa-b79747a3da06&displaylang=en.

    This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
    Friday, September 17, 2010 5:45 PM
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