Deploying Outlook addin to a Citrix XenApp installation

5
votes

I created an Outlook addin. It does nothing special, just adds a menu with one menu item. I followed the installer creation tutorial from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mcsuksoldev/archive/2010/10/01/building-and-deploying-an-outlook-2010-add-in-part-2-of-2.aspx.

It installs and works properly on a normal windows desktop installation, but I cant figure out how to do it in a Citrix XenApp environment. I can install it using the installer in the same profile where the Outlook is installed successfully. But when Outlook is run, it is in the "Inactive Application Addins" section when I view it from the Trust Center menu, and it wont activate properly. If I open the Manage COM Addins menu, it displays "Load at Startup" as my addin's Load Behavior. If I try to activate it manually from this menu, nothing happens, and if I open it again, Load Behavior will change to "Not Loaded. The Managed Add-in Loader failed to initialize."

Anyone encountered this or something similar before? Thanks in advance.

1
vstoms-officeoutlook-addincitrixxenapp
I looked at the instructions you followed @Altealice and I'm wondering if you created your registry keys under HKEY_CURRENT_USER as the documentation suggested? If so, you may want to move your add-in's registry keys to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, which would allow all users to access it under Citrix. If this is not the issue, please confirm you are installing your add-in for Outlook 2010 (as opposed to Outlook 2007). – joeschwa
@joeschwa I've tried both HKCU and HKLM, no luck. :(. I am installing the add-in to Outlook 2007. Should something be different? – Altealice
When I ran it on a normal windows desktop installation, I was using Outlook 2007. It worked fine there. – Altealice
Office 2007 (and by extension Outlook) had an issue where VSTO add-ins did not load correctly. You can read about it here: link. The resolution involves installing a hotfix and manually entering the registry (as well as having registry keys under HKLM). If the Citrix box was not updated with this patch, this could be the issue. – joeschwa
Oh, I see. I will try this hotfix when I get back to the office. Thanks! – Altealice

1 Answers

0
votes

If it's installing but inactive then it's probably throwing an exception upon startup.

I'd wrap all of your startup code (ThisAddIn_Startup function inside your ThisAddIn.cs) inside a try {} catch {} and log all errors out to disk so you can see why outlook is disabling your addin.

Have you tried setting the VSTO_SUPPRESSDISPLAYALERTS environment variable to see if you can get outlook to give you more info?

(BTW I have found outlook VSTO's to be flaky. Sometimes they just refuse to install and work.)