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.
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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.
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 am willing to develop an Outlook add-in for both, the web and the desktop version. My questions are:
When I upload a new version of the add-in, is it automatically updated (per default) in the users' devices / outlook web accounts?
Is it the same add-in for both, web and desktop, uploaded to office store?
If you are only updating the source code of the add-in (HTML, JavaScript, CSS) on the web server where you host it, then all users will get that right away since like Dmitry explained, Outlook will download the page like a browser would download it. So you should be careful updating the page of the production add-in - users will get the updates right away (although keep in mind that user's system/browser may cache previous version of the page for some time), so if you break the page or functionality of the add-in, users will get affected immediately, which may result in negative reviews for your add-in in the Office Store.
If you are updating the manifest XML file of the addin, then you need to publish new version of it to Office Store. Once it's published, that new version will automatically be updated for users who already installed an earlier version of the add-in. This automatic update will happen after they login to any of their Outlook clients that support add-ins.
Yes it is the same add-in for both web and desktop - that's the beauty of the new Office add-ins!
Hope this helps.
Web addins are never even stored locally, (desktop) Outlook downloads the addin source code every time it starts up.
I have built an Application using visual studio 2010 and a setup using the Visual Studio installer. Now what I want is whenever the exe is installed on a client machine it should check for updates regularly.
Any Suggestions . Please Help.
It's my experience that most people do this in the app itself, so that when it runs it checks your web site for updates.
Basically you need a web service call to which your app passes the ProductCode and Version of your setup, your MSI file build. At your web host you need a database (or Xml file) that has information on the latest available version and it's download location so that you can return that information to your app, assuming the latest version is higher than the running one.
You're in Visual Studio, so you build a RemovePreviousVersions updated MSI, and that's what you download and install. If the install needs admin rights and your app isn't elevated than you'd launch an external exe with an elevation manifest to get it installed.
I just finished a project similar to this, but instead of using Visual Studio installer libraries, I created a windows service that runs on a 10 minute loop, and when the service detects a new version, it kills the running application and performs a download and copies the new files into the application folder.
There are a few things you need to take into consideration; 1) A way to gracefully warn and then close the application so the user is not angry over a forced kill of the application. 2) A web location to store the upgraded application files, and a web service to advertise the available application versions. 3) A way to queue the upgrades so that when a new version is released not every client will be upgraded at once (flooding your web server with upgrade requests and downloads).
This technique is used by Adobe for upgrading and installing applications such as Acrobat Reader and Flash.
I am developing a VSTO plug-in for Outlook so far so good. What is worrying me is how to deploy updated versions of the plug-in.
Since we have some policies I can only deploy manually on the PCs I do not wish to have to visit each PC on each update. So I was wondering if I can somehow put this plug-in in a shared drive and somehow deploy the new files next time outlook is opened.
Any ideas ? Any other solution?
I'm not quite sure on the exact policies which let you deploy the the updated versions only manually, but have you already looked into ClickOnce deployment? You would be able to update all addins centrally:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/1666d2b0-a4d0-41e8-ad86-5eab3542de1e/deploying-office-solutions-to-end-user-computers
As far as I know ClickOnce can also be used from a network share, but I've never tested this by myself:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/71baz9ah.aspx