OL Addin and VMWare - outlook

We have a managed COM addin for Outlook
works flawlessly on a real machine
now using VMWare 6.05 I think whe we try and install our addin OL refuses to load us
and we keeo seeing a message( when we go to the manage addins dialog) saying a runtime error occurred when loading the COM component
Nothing on event viewer
We are seeing this on images of Office 2003 and 2007
anyone ever run into something like this where VMWare images are causing issues with OL addins

Do you have access to the source code of the addin ? if so you could debug or trace the startup. Can you load any other addins? what does the adding do ?
76mel

Related

Outlook add-in appears on OWA, doesn't appear on Outlook 2013 client, on-premise Exchange 2013 server

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.

Outlook VSTO Plugin does not show after install

I've built and deployed an Outlook 2016 VSTO plugin and built an installer for it using the following walkthrough - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc442767.aspx. The installer has been compiled for x86 and x64 architectures (two separate installs).
However, I'm seeing a variety of different issues when I install in different environments.
In a Windows 7 (x64, Office x32), the plugin loads as expected and works perfectly.
In a Windows 7 (x64, Office x64), the plugin installs, the LoadBehavior is correct, the plugin is loaded in Outlook but it is never displayed? I have tried to disable all other add-ins and still it doesn't show up?
I have tried using the suppressed alerts - How to troubleshoot a VSTO addin that does not load? - but this has not yielded any useful information at this moment.
Some of these peculiarities extend into Windows 10 itself.
What I'm trying to ascertain is why some environments the plugin goes in smoothly and in others why it fails or worst, faults. Are there other keys I need to look at?
Thanks
There are a lot of pitfalls why you may not see the plug-in in Office applications.
The very first option I'd suggest checking - UI errors. By default, if an VSTO Add-in attempts to manipulate the Microsoft Office user interface (UI) and fails, no error message is displayed. However, you can configure Microsoft Office applications to display messages for errors that relate to the UI. You can use these messages to help determine why a custom Ribbon does not appear, or why a Ribbon appears but no controls appear. See How to: Show Add-in User Interface Errors for more information.
Second, make sure that you included all the required prerequisites to the installer. Sometimes the plug-in can't run correclty because any of the dependencies is missed. Or you just use platform-specific assemblies...
Third, make sure no exceptions are fired at startup.
Below you may find some helpful articles:
Troubleshooting COM Add-In load failures
Resolving performance issues with loading Office add-ins (VSTO add-ins or Shared add-ins)
Thanks for the info - the end result issue ended being a combination of registry keys being deployed to the wrong location for x64 platforms on an x86 Office install.
The solution was to cover my bases with both registry hives to ensure things loaded as expected.

Customised Outlook Add-in installs properly on some machine whereas in some it goes into Inactive state

We developed an Outlook Add-In for Win 7 with SP1 and .NET Framework 4.0 as a prerequisite. It gets install perfectly on some machine without any hiccup but in other machines (same configuration, Win 7 & SP1) the add-in goes into the 'inactive' state and doesnt load while outlook start-up.
While installing there are no issues or error message getting displayed. What could be the problem? How can I check or debug what could be causing this issue? Any solution or hints on this will be highly appreaciated.
Inactive add-ins are usually caused by a missing reference that wasn't deployed. Try some of these resources:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/haahmadi/archive/2010/05/26/my-vsto-add-in-does-not-load.aspx
http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/vstotroubleshooter

vsto 2010 outlook addin installed but not visible

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.

VSTO Outlook AddIn disabled in Vista

We have an issue with an Outlook 2007 AddIn (created on a Windows 7 development machine with Visual Studio 2008/VSTO).
It installs with the MSI installer on these machines:
- the development machine
- a Windows XP machine
Install initially succeeded on a Vista machine, but after installing an updated version of the AddIn, it gets disabled when starting Outlook. We suspect it might be related to how Vista handles security.
Have anyone encountered issues specific to installing VSTO AddIn on a Vista machine?
(Please note that the AddIn in our case gets installed alright, but is 'just' disabled when starting Outlook.)
The add in might be throwing an exception.
An unhandled exception causes the add in to be disabled.
We hit this issue on some random machines and after much head scratching, it turned out that Office.Interop was not installed on the client. We had assumed it would be installed with Office 2007 - which it appears to be in many cases.

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