Outlook Add-In shows as active but isn't available in the ribbon

0
votes

I've created a simple Outlook add-in and I can't seem to get an install package together correctly.

Specs: Visual Studio 2010 (C#), .Net 4.0, Office 2007

The add-in works perfectly in my development environment and appears to install successfully with the setup file I created (using http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mcsuksoldev/archive/2010/10/01/building-and-deploying-an-outlook-2010-add-in-part-2-of-2.aspx).

The problem is once Outlook is reopened after the install, the Add-in is nowhere to be found. It shows up as an "Active Application Add-in", yet it's not available on the ribbon like it is when I run the add-in through Visual Studio. Do I need to hard-code it in the ribbon somehow? Also, I noticed if I manually open the VSTO file and install it, all seems perfect again. Thanks for your help!

1
c#outlookvstooutlook-addin
did you checked if it is there in disable addin? what is registry value for loadbehaviour after you open excel – Brijesh Mishra
Share with us your registry keys and values. – SliverNinja - MSFT
Brijesh - it is not disabled, it shows up under "active application add-ins" in the trust center in Outlook. The loadbehavior stays at 3, however I am using Outlook and not Excel. – RyanSTV
SilverNinja: Description=TestOutlookAddIn FriendlyName=TestOutlookAddIn LoadBehavior (DWORD)=3 Manifest=C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Setup1\TestOutlookAddIn.vsto|vstolocal – RyanSTV
You're following instructions for Office 2010 but you're installing into Office 2007. Have you accounted for this? In addition to the Office 2010 prerequisites, the Office 2007 installation requires .NET 3.5 SP1 and Microsoft Office 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies. – Keith

1 Answers

0
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There's a lot that can go wrong with a VSTO installation. Here's what I think may be going wrong in your situation:

  1. If you're installing the add-in on your development machine then try a different machine instead. Debugging the add-in on your development machine sort of registers the add-in with Office via some registry keys but that registration info doesn't get cleaned up. (You can certainly clean those keys up yourself and then try your add-in's installer but I recommend a clean machine just in case.)

  2. Try the installation without |vstolocal in the manifest path. I know Microsoft recommends including it but in my own experience it prevented my add-in from loading, and using a normal path fixed the problem.

  3. If you're installing to Office 32-bit on a 64-bit machine then you'll need to write your registry keys to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office...

  4. Consider installing your add-in using VSTOInstaller.exe instead of manually writing the registry keys. (I tried to write the registry keys myself but Microsoft's own documentation -- rather, random blog posts -- for doing this is not thorough enough and sometimes just plain incorrect and misleading.)