Visual Studio 2012 - MS Excel 2013 Templates only, backward compatibility? - visual-studio

I'll be starting a new project in Visual Studio 2012, using a VB Excel template but the only options are for Excel 2013 (there are three options around Add-in, Template or Workbook) but majority of the users will be using 2007 and 2010 Excel.
Would an Excel 2013 project be backward compatible with 2007 and 2010? Or must I download a separate template that is not offered in the vanilla version of VS2012?
Thanks :)
These are the project options:

Look,
Select .NET Framework 4 and you will be able to see all the templates...

Related

Office 2016 add-in development in Visual studio 2013

We need to develop add-in for the Office 2016. We are using the Visual studio 2013. It is only showing the Office 2013 add-in templates. Is it possible to create Office 2016 add-in from Visual studio 2013? If so, kindly let me know the steps.
You need VS 2015 to get the specific templates for Office 2016. VSTO only ever provides templates for "current" versions of Office.
If Office 2013 is installed you can develop an Add-in for it. There should be no problem installing and running it in Office 2016 - unless you want to use technology specific to 2016. In that case, you could use late-binding (PInvoke) for the 2016-specific portions, but debugging/testing would be a bit of a pain.
You can download the free Visual Studio 2015 Community edition (https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs.aspx) as well as the VSTO package (https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/features/office-tools-vs.aspx): VSTO does integrate into the Community edition for version 2015 (and 2013, for that matter). Licensing restrictions would apply, of course.
Other than that, you'd need to upgrade to a full VS 2015.
You can develop and run Office 2016 addins in VS2013. No need to upgrade to VS2015.
Install VSTO 4.0 extension for VS2013
Create Office 2013 plugin using Visual Studio template
Open project file and replace office version string "15.0" to "16.0" in ProjectExtensions section. Look for this of similar string to edit:
OfficeVersion="15.0" VstxVersion="4.0" ApplicationType="Outlook" Language="cs" TemplatesPath="" DebugInfoExeName="#Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\InstallRoot\Path#outlook.exe"
Yes, it is possible. The add-in created in Visual Studio 2013 can be run in Office 2016. You can read more about that in the Running Solutions in Different Versions of Microsoft Office article.
In case if you need to use new methods and properties available only in Office 2016 you can use the Reflection mechanism (see Type.InvokeMember).
there is an example for Outlook, i tried it for Excel and it works as well.
my example:
<ProjectProperties HostName="Excel" HostPackage="{29A7B9D7-A7F1-4328-8EF0-6B2D1A56B2C1}" OfficeVersion="16.0" VstxVersion="4.0" ApplicationType="Excel" Language="vb" TemplatesPath="" DebugInfoExeName="#Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel\InstallRoot\Path#excel.exe" DebugInfoCommandLine="/x" AddItemTemplatesGuid="{DCFE8D25-4715-4C33-9EAB-A34A9EBC9544}" />
i changed
OfficeVersion="15.0"
to
OfficeVersion="16.0"
and the path to Excel
#Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel\
as well, finally it starts in Excel 2016...

Developing Excel 2007 Document-Level Solution in Visual Studio 2013

The Visual Studio 2013 documentation does not list Excel 2007 as one of the versions supported in the document-level customization solutions.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa942839.aspx
If I go the route of a document-level customization solution I will need it to be able to be deployed to Excel 2007 because that is the version of Office the users will have.
Do I need to develop in an earlier version of Visual Studio to get this to work? - or can I develop Excel 2007 document solutions in Visual Studio 2013? If so, will I need office 2007 installed on my development machine?
A similar question has been asked regarding Visual Studio 2012 below:
VSTO 2012: backward compatibility
Thanks!

Can I create an Outlook 2010 add in in Visual Studio Professional 2013?

I have just installed Visual Studio Professional 2013 and wish to write an add in for Outlook 2010, however there is only an option to start a new project for an Outlook 2013 add in. When I search for more templates under the web option I can not find what I want. Is there a way to create an Outlook 2010 add in without installing a different version of Visual Studio? Or will a 2013 add in work in 2010?
At the New Project dialog, first change the .NET Framework target version to 4.0. Combobox at the top of the dialog. You'll then see the Office 2010 project templates as well.

Can not open VB 6.0 files in Visual Studio 2010

If Visual Studio includes Visual Basic, why can't I open a VB 6.0 file in Visual Studio 2010?
Because there's a difference between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET which is what Visual Studio 2010 includes.
Darin is basically right but omits an important detail.
There's a difference between VB6 and VB.Net, and Visual Studio 2010 includes VB.Net
Earlier versions of VB.Net included an upgrade wizard to help convert VB6 code to VB.Net. This was dropped in Visual Studion 2010. You might want to use Visual Studio 2008 to help upgrade your VB6 to VB.Net, and then migrate to Visual Studio 2010 later. Upgrading VB6 to VB.Net can be a large task.
That's correct. I upgrade to 2008 then to 2010. You have to run the installed program from vb6 first then it will upgrade. You might have terminal failures from unfound assemblies. Go into the .vb form file with a text editor. REM out any failed to load assemblies from the fail report. Then you can re-write the VB code for code errors as the lingo changed. Next upgrade to vb 2010 using that wizard and re-write for new lingo again.
Form sizes are converted to vb6. in 2008, then that is scrapped in 2010, don't re-write that in 2008, if you're upgrading right away, you'll have to re-write in 2010 anyway.
Common file open/save/browse/color/font routines become vb powerpacks 10 which you load with your vb 2010 assembly. You have to re-insert the new common assemblies into the form from the toolbox and re-work the code. There's a bunch of stuff there, but it is do-able.
I have not used VS 2010, but based on my readings, the latest VB is effectively a new language altogether. Since introduction of VB .NET, VB 6.0 has become a stagnant language.

Will Visual Studio 2010 support Sharepoint 2007 development?

I noticed in VS2010 beta 2 that all the templates are for Sharepoint 2010 ONLY.
Is this true ?
If so, will the VSeWSS 1.3 work with VS2010 atleast?
As far as I remember the session here at SharePoint Las Vegas conference, the new and cool Visual Studio 2010 stuff will only be available for SharePoint 2010... sorry...
You will probably still be able to do some hacks and move stuff from new VS to old SharePoint, but new features are not backward compatible.
The final VSeWSS 1.3 release was to have been delayed by Microsoft until December 2009... I haven't checked on the final status of that. However, the new VS10 projects include import routines so that you can import old VSeWSS projects to VS10 format.
Edit:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010general/thread/9afcff83-dbbf-450e-a5bd-78728d991276
Quote: "Visual Studio 2010 has built in tools for SharePoint 2010 and for SharePoint 2007. But the SharePoint 2007 tools are limited to the same workflow tools that were available in Visual Studio 2008 out of the box. The VSeWSS tools are not directly included in Visual Studio 2010 and the VSeWSS release doesn't work with Visual Studio 2010, only with Visual Studio 2008."
I would not expect VSeWSS 1.3 to work with VS2010, but you're probably better off using STSDev or WSPBuilder for 2007 development anyway, which could probably be made to work with VS2010 if they don't already.

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