We are developing an Outlook Add-In VSTO using C#, it reads a configuration by using ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["key"].
We made a .msi installer by WIX and installed to Outlook, then the Add-In can't read the config value.
But when trying with Advanced Installer, the add-in works perfectly.
I'm not sure what the Advanced Installer does with my msi file (or registry), can you please help me to solve the problem with WIX because we want a free installer creator tool (Advanced Installer costs me 1500$).
Thanks a lot
Does the add-in assembly name correspond to the config file name? Are they located in the same folder? Is the config file deployed?
The Deploying an Office Solution by Using Windows Installer article provides all the required steps for creating Windows installer setup programs.
Related
I'm using Advanced Installer to try to create an installation package (single EXE setup file) for an MS Project VSTO add-in. I need the installation Type to be Per Machine but when I chose this option and run the setup.exe file, the Add-in will not load for any of the user's on the target machine. The only way I can get it to load is if I change the installation type to Per User, which I don't want.
I'm fairly certain the problem is related to the registry, because the setup.exe is not adding the proper registry keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE to load the add-in, even though I have it set up to do so:
What am I doing wrong?
There are other things that needs to be done except windows registry keys. For example, you need to specify whether you want to support per-user or per-computer installations.
The Deploy an Office solution by using Windows Installer article describes all the necessary steps for creating per-use and per-machine Office add-in installers. Make sure that you did everything in your installation package.
My goal is install VSTO Outlook Addin for all users on local PC instead of current user. I used Publish method from Visual Studio and result is exe file, which means ClickOnce method. (not posible for install for All)
Well i start my research i found Wix.
My first question is, when i create Build from Visual Studio from my VSTO addin, i have 2 dirs and 20 files, is possible to assign dirs in product.wxs file in WIX Directory ref?
Second question, when files and dirs are "installed" to target directory, (program files for example) how can be VSTO be assigned to Outlook ? Its becouse to add VSTO to registry HKLM ?
Im asking if im closer to my goal
Not sure if I understood your first question but I will try to answer it anyway. The only files you have to bring to a user's PC are those that are located under bin/Release folder, except for those that have the *.pdb extension. There are 2 ways how you can add them into the installation:
First way is to manually add each file you want to include in your installation as the file component in you Product.wxs. You can find a good example of that in their official tutorial.
Second way is to utilize the harvest tool (Heat) from Wix Toolset. This tool can generate a list of components automatically during a build.
As for your second question. To make Word or Outlook see your add-on you have to create an entry in Windows registry during installation. For example for Microsoft Word you have to create a new key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\MySuperAddOn with the following entries:
Entry
Type
Value
Description
REG_SZ
Required. A brief description of the VSTO Add-in. This description is displayed when the user selects the VSTO Add-in in the Add-Ins pane of the Options dialog box in the Microsoft Office application.
FriendlyName
REG_SZ
Required. A descriptive name of the VSTO Add-in that is displayed in the COM Add-Ins dialog box in the Microsoft Office application. The default value is the VSTO Add-in ID.
LoadBehavior
REG_DWORD
Required. A value that specifies when the application attempts to load the VSTO Add-in and the current state of the VSTO Add-in (loaded or unloaded). By default, this entry is set to 3, which specifies that the VSTO Add-in is loaded at startup. For more information, see LoadBehavior values. Note: If a user disables the VSTO Add-in, that action modifies LoadBehavior value in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive. For each user, the value of the LoadBehavior value in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive overrides the default LoadBehavior defined in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive.
Manifest
REG_SZ
Required. The full path of the deployment manifest for the VSTO Add-in. The path can be a location on the local computer, a network share (UNC), or a Web server (HTTP). If you use Windows Installer to deploy the solution, you must add the prefix file:/// to the manifest path. You must also append the string |vstolocal (that is, the pipe character | followed by vstolocal) to the end of this path. This ensures that your solution is loaded from the installation folder, rather than the ClickOnce cache. For more information, see Deploy an Office solution by using Windows Installer. Note: When you build a VSTO Add-in on the development computer, Visual Studio automatically appends the
You may want to read the official documentation to see more details.
Wix Toolset does allow to do that as well. You have to declare the RegistryKey component in your Product.wxs.
I have an add-in developed for Outlook 2016 installed on everyone's machine in my company (about 200 users) but on one user's machine the add-in never loads (even under the "Disabled Add-Ins" or "Inactive Add-Ins"). The correct registry key is setup and all of the files are there but I see the following error from the windows event viewer:
Customization URI: file:///C:/Program Files (x86)/.../MyAddIn.vsto
Exception: Downloading file:///C:/Program Files (x86)/.../Microsoft.Office.Tools.dll did not succeed
I don't understand why it's looking for that file in that particular folder. I don't see this file on anyone else's machine in that directory and yet my add-in works for them. I thought that it should be loaded from the GAC (his GAC matches everyone else's with the same "Microsoft.Office.Tools.v9.0"). What could be the problem on his machine?
Note - I'm installing my add-in through a windows installer made using WiX. I've tried it with both Outlook 32-bit and Outlook 64-bit on his machine and that didn't change anything.
The exception detailes belongs to the ClickOnce installer, not MSI (WIX). I'd recommend removing any previous editions of your add-in first.
First let me get this stuff out of the way:
This happens with my own addin, as well as another third party VSTO add-in, so I don't think I'm doing anything incorrect
.net 4.0. VSTO runtime 10.0.50701
Windows 8. Also tried Windows 7
I am using the |vstolocal suffix in the HKLM registry for the addin
I have also tried adjusting the 'program files' paths in the registry here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion to point to my new 'F:' location, and that didn't change any behavior
Here are the steps I'm taking:
Create a new volume on a separate disk other than C:. I called mine 'F:'
Add the program files structures F:\program files and F:\program files (x86)
Install your VSTO addin (I'm using Outlook but it will happen with Word too) to "F:\program files (x86)" instead of the 'C:' drive
Launch Outlook.
Result is this dialog:
According to this, I shouldn't be getting this since its an all users install (see the Inclusion List section):
Is this a Microsoft issue? I realize I can add to the Inclusion myself however then I would be subscribing to more of a per-user approach, and that seems like a bad approach. Is this coming up because anything other than the 'real' program files folder cannot really be trusted by VSTO loader?
The dialog window belongs to the ClickOnce installer. But the link goes to the Windows Installer section in MSDN.
It is up to you where to install the add-in, there is no need to use the Program Files folder.
Make sure that you did all the steps described in the Deploying an Office Solution by Using Windows Installer article. It describes all the required steps for creating add-in installers.
I recently went through the same thing, i got this when i just published the vsto from vs2015. I tried using installshield, yielded the same issues, eventually i switched to wix installer, now i don't have any update checks running and its a clean install. These are some customization updates and our client actually had a firewall blocking it so the install failed. Try wix it worked great for me. Hopefully you don't end up with my current issue of not seeing the add-in if i am not running outlook as Administrator, driving me nuts, good luck.
I've created my first Outlook 2010 AddIn using VS 2012 but I'm having trouble creating a setup.exe.
I'm using clickOnce to publish the setup.exe files but when I try to install the AddIn, I get the same message as this guy - Error deploying VSTO Office addin
It turns out I cannot create MSI installer in VS2012 as written in the accepted SO answer because MS no longer supports it. Instead I am to use InstallShield to create the setup.exe. I tried that with the steps outlined in this video - http://resources.flexerasoftware.com/web/demos/IS2010_VSLE_Demo/IS2010_VSLE_Demo-lite.html
That failed too. For some reason it cannot find the .vsto file which doesn't seem to get created! The file path it looks for is also wrong even though I did specify in the registry "[TARGETDIR]… |vstolocal" per the instructions from an MSDN page.
Question: What do I need to do to fix either the clickOnce installer error or the InstallShield error?
I don't care which deployment method I use as long as:
1. it WORKS!
2. I can copy the setup.exe (w/ any necessary files) on to a USB stick and give a few people to test the Outlook AddIn.
Thanks.
Thanks to Andy_mic in MSDN Forum, here's the answer:
Follow ALL the steps, step by step, in the following link: Deploying an Office Solution by Using Windows Installer
I ran into a couple of problems:
I did not have the GUI Generator installed as a windows program. See this post for solution: Is Tools > Create GUID removed in Visual Studio 2012?
The value for the Manifest in the Registry data of the AddIn should be: "file:///[INSTALLDIR]ManifestFileName.vsto|vstolocal". In my case the manifest filename was ABCAddin_v1_0_0.vsto and so the value has to be "file:///[INSTALLDIR]ABCAddin_v1_0_0.vsto|vstolocal"
If you do not find the deployment and application manifest files in the "bin/release" folder, its because you need build a release version of the project first!