I have written a VSTO for Outlook with a formregion for meeting/appointmentitems in VS 2015.
I deploy this to our desktop computers using ClickOnce.
I would like to use the Windows Installer to install the VSTO for laptops because when I use ClickOnce and the laptop uses Outlook when not connected to the corporate network, the add-in is disabled.
I assume this is because it cannot reach the internal ClickOnce publish location, eventhough the deployment should not check for updates.
I have followed this article to create an installer for the addin.
I followed the all-users steps and the files are installed to the local computer and the registry keys are being created but the Add-in is not loaded in Outlook and it even is not showing up in the list of Addins in Outlook.
Anyone who has had similar issues and knows how to solve this problem? It's driving me crazy for the past 2 days.
There is no such central repository. Your addin most likely gets disabled on startup because of a run-time error.
Related
This is in an Enterprise setup (had a lot of GPO set) running Exchange 2013 Server, with Outlook 2013 client.
I installed the add-in using OWA
Manage Add-ins > Add from file
The add-in appeared in and worked fine
When I open outlook 2013, I do not see the add-in appear, tried a lot of steps to debug.
As per this doc https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/add-ins/troubleshoot-outlook-add-in-activation
Version no was ?Session.ExchangeMailboxServerVersion
15.0.1320.4000
Is the add-in disabled?
Enabled
Is the add-in manifest installed properly, and does Outlook have a cached copy?
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Office\15.0\WEF \<insert your guid>\<insert base 64 hash>\Manifests\<ManifestID>_<ManifestVersion>
The new added add-in files would get removed everytime the data is pulled from exchange servers. Only 3 default add-in files were available.
Checked Windows Logs in Eventviewer
The Exchange web service request GetAppManifests succeeded.
Got this message with event id 63
We also checked Fiddler and could see the call going to get the manifests but that would give the manifest of only 3 add-ins that come installed by default on Exchange Setup.
For the same account, the add-in works fine in a Virtual Environment, VDI setup. But doesn't appear on the desktop environment, if that helps.
To rule out the possibility of a wrong manifest file, we tried using the Outlook Command Demo Add-in. This also worked on Virtual Environment, VDI setup. But doesn't appear on the desktop environment.
Are there any other steps that can help us debug this? Any directory where logs are available for add-ins?
We have hit a roadblock due to this with no idea how to debug/get it working.
I have been struggling to figure this out.
We have made a Outlook Add-In in Visual Studio 2013.
I can install this using the .vsto that they provide without a problem on a windows machine.
Now I try the same thing, placing the .vsto on the citrix server, installing this works fine, although it does a call to the internet which isn't allowed, so I had to work around that (anybody know why it calls to the internet? and what?).
Than I got it installed at the server, go to the thin clients, its right there, the only thing I have to do is activate it.
The second I activate it, it runs an executable, which obviously is not allowed, and I cannot activate it on the client.
You need to create an MSI installer for the add-in. See Deploying an Office Solution by Using Windows Installer for more information.
I am having a horrible time getting started at creating an add-in for Outlook. I want to use the new html/javascript/manifest approach. I have been able to create a manifest and application which works great with outlook.live.com. Where I am completely getting stuck is with desktop Outlook. How do I install/debug my add-in with desktop Outlook?
I cannot find anything in the UI which will let me add this style of add-in. Additionally the Microsoft documentation did not make things any clearer. Their docs seem to hint using this type of add-in is only possible if you are connecting to an Exchange server.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Yes the add-in will load on Outlook desktop only if your mailbox is Exchange. I am not sure the add-ins work with a personal Microsoft account (e.g hotmail.com, outlook.com) and Office desktop. Keep in mind that the support of mail add-ins for personal account is relatively new (officially announced in march 2016).
To develop your add-in I suggest you to use a organizational account (i.e. Office365 account). Support for organizational account has been released in 2013 and is a much more mature solution for you to get started. You can have a free dev account at dev.office.com.
Edit: October 2016 personal account are supported now by "Personal mailbox accounts" aka outlook.com accounts
Let us keep in mind that a mail add-in is not installed on a mail client (desktop, OWA) but on the mail account. When you "install" an add-in you only set a xml file on your mailbox that basically says "there is a web add-in out there called X and that is served at this url...". Then, if you install add-in X on your mailbox smaclell#mytestcompany.onmicrosoft.com, this add-in will load the add-in web iframes whether you are consulting your mailbox with Outlook Web Access (OWA) or Outlook Desktop.
To install the add-in for one user mailaccount, you have to use the Outlook Web Access. See this blog post. Note also that you can install the add-in for the whole organisation (Admin > Exchange Admin > Add-ins). Finally, Visual Studio is also able to push the manifest to your office 365 mailbox. To have this you need Office Development Tools.
For debugging in Outlook Desktop, I know two approaches.
Use the Office Developement Tools with visual studio
and select your sample add-in project as 'Starting project' and in properties select 'Office Desktop'.
Plain web development.
Personally, I do not use really much the Office Development Tools. I install manually my add-in with "https://localhost:XXXX" for url and I start the web project on IIS express to do the debugging. For stepping into the source code, I use the debugger of my browser (Chrome, Edge, IE etc.) when browsing in OWA. When I need to step into source code specifically on Desktop (For windows or for Mac) I use Vorlon.js see also this blog post.
My advice is also to test/debug frequently with IE 11 (still available in Win10!) and OWA. Indeed, the browser used internally by Office Desktop for the add-ins is IE.
I am developing a VSTO 2010 Office 2007 Outlook Add-In deployed from Click-Once. On the computer I developed it, running Visual Studio, everything works just fine, but when trying to install it on another computer, the addin is installed, and during the startup screen, It comes under Inactive Applications Add-in.
In Load Behavior, It shows Not Loaded.A Runtime error Occured during the loading of the COM-Add-in.I have changed the Load behavior from 2 to 3 in HKCU under Registry Editor.But it is again reverted back to 2.Not sure how to find the specific error so I can fix it.
Does anyone have any ideas on what might be causing this?
Any ideas anyone might have would be greatly appreciated.
Finally I have found a solution by myself.What I have done is Before I published a solution I was checked .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 Client Profile in prerequisites under Install settings and it works for me now.
I have created an outlook 2007 add-in project in vs2008, targeting .net 3.5, then migrated the project to vs2010.
I have then published the project from vs2010 to a web site, and installed the add-in using click-once to a virtual machine running xp, .net 3.5 sp1, and outlook 2007. This all works great and I can see my add-in within outlook. Publish update settings are set to update the add-in at startup rather than every 7 days.
However when I then make a simple change to the add-in, update the AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion of the add-in project, and then publish the updates, when I run outlook it doesn't detect that there is a new version, and just runs the current one that is installed.
I can see that the publish has generated a new setup.exe and added a new folder to the 'Application Files' folder with the current (autogenerated) publish version.
Can anyone suggest how I can get the update to be deployed to the client?
Edit:
I left the VM without outlook running for a while (over lunch) and then came to start it up and it detected the latest update and installed it. However now when I make another change and re-publish it is not picking it up. I wonder if this has something to do with caching of the files. I have deleted all the temporary internet files on the client vm, but that didn't help.
The reason it is not detecting published updates was due to iis caching the pages.
I added the expiration common header in IIS7 manager and set it to expire immediately, and after that the addin detected each change as it was published.
Double-check and make SURE you have it set to check every time they open the application and not just once a day.