Create Registry in both Wow6432Node and normal hive

3
votes

So I created an MSI for Outlook Addin using Visual Sudio 2010 adding registry key as:

Reg Hive

and ran it and it puts the registry keys in the Wow6432Node although both Office and Windows is x64.

I run windows 7 and Office 2010 x64.

Then I exported myAddin registry hive and edited it so it pointed to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins. Opened Outlook and guess what....the addin shows up.

Next question, how do I add the registry keys to both normal and Wow6432Node hive in Visual Studio?

This is a followup form this question: Outlook COM addin installed but not loading in Outlook

1
c#visual-studio-2010outlookadd-in
Why do you want to put it into both hives? Is your goal to support both x64 Office and x86 Office with your addin? Technically - you just need it to appear in one hive since you can't have 2 versions of office installed - right? – SliverNinja - MSFT
Hi SilverNinja. I tried adding it just on x64 hive which was HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins but once hte addin is installed the entries automatically go to Wow6432Node hive and the addin does not show up in Outlook COMAddin. But when I manually add the the keys to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\MyAddin then the addin loads up when Outlook is launched with no problem. – James
Perhaps slightly pedantic but Wow6432Node is not a registry "hive", it's just a registry key. See: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724877.aspx – Iridium

1 Answers

3
votes

For x64 Office, make sure you assign the proper TargetPlatform (under VS Setup Project Properties) so that the installer knows which registry location to assign. The default TargetPlatform is x86 which will place your registry hives into Wow6432Node on a x64 OS host.

VS Setup Project (x64 Office)

TargetPlatform = x64

VS Setup Project (x86 Office)

TargetPlatform = x86