Confusion about possibility of publishing a VSTO Add-In to Windows Store or Office Store

2
votes

We've read conflicting messages about whether or not a VSTO Add-In can be published to a Windows App Store or an Office App Store. First,

VSTO Add-in:

  1. It's an application also know as Office Solution. From this MSDN article: You can use the Microsoft Office developer tools in Visual Studio to create .NET Framework applications that extend Office. These applications are also named Office solutions
  2. Also see Programming VSTO Add-in.
  3. Deploying an Office Solution (i.e, VSTO-AddIn). You can use either ClickOnce technology or Windows Installer

Office-Add-in:

Use web based technology. These Add-ins enable you to extend Office clients such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook using web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. [Ref: Office Add-ins]

Question: Can someone please clarify the following confusion? In our Stack Overflow post here about our VSTO Add-in some users seem to indicate that we can upload my VSTO Add-in to Office App Store and not to Windows App Store. But according to a Microsoft Employee Michael Zlatkovsky in his response to a similar question on an MSDN forum here: VSTO add-ins should be able to be listed in the Windows Store as desktop app.

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Michael Zlatkovsky's answer is not correct. See Erik Olson's response in the same thread. Also, please see the answer and comments in this link: How do I release an Office Add In to the Windows Store. - joeschwa

1 Answers

2
votes

In our Stack Overflow post here about our VSTO Add-in, some users seem to indicate that we can upload my VSTO Add-in to Office App Store and not to Windows App Store.

Firstly, Office Store only accept web based office add-in so you're not able to upload your VSTO developed add-in to Office Store for official publishing.

You might refer to Office Add-ins platform overview.

But according to a Microsoft Employee Michael Zlatkovsky in his response to a similar question on an MSDN forum here: VSTO add-ins should be able to be listed in the Windows Store as desktop app.

Please note that the response from @Michael Alatkovsky was from 2013, which is indeed correct at that time. Also, you could refer to this article provided by him: the content moved, desktop application has been not a part of our new Windows 10 Store. The existing desktop app can still be available to Windows 8.x users but cannot be updated in Dev Center.

However, the desktop app converter currently can only enable you to bring your existing desktop apps written for .NET 4.6.1 or Win32 to UWP, VSTO developed app is not supported.

You might submit a feature request through the Windows 10 Feedback Hub.