AddIn running on 2003 & 2007 - same system

[David Thielen]

Hi;

We have a customer who has both Office 2003 & Office 2007 installed on
their computer. They want our AddIn to run on both. And they want the
Ribbon in the 2007 version so just installing the 2003 version is not
cutting it for them.

How can we do this?

thanks - dave

david@[email protected]
Windward Reports -- http://www.WindwardReports.com
me -- http://dave.thielen.com

Cubicle Wars - http://www.windwardreports.com/film.htm

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi David,

We have a customer who has both Office 2003 & Office 2007 installed on
their computer. They want our AddIn to run on both. And they want the
Ribbon in the 2007 version so just installing the 2003 version is not
cutting it for them.

How can we do this?

I'd say they need to install (and pay for?) both, not just one or the
other. I'd probably set them to "load-on-demand", then create a third
add-in (load automatically) to load the appropriate one, based on which
application version it has loaded into.

You might point out to them that Microsoft does not support parallel
installation of Office applications (and hasn't supported them for over
a decade). (I'm sure that's documented somewhere, on-line, but I don't
know where, right off-hand.) You yourself know that, from your ventures
into the VSTO technology. Given that fact, it shouldn't be surprising
that your software doesn't support that, either. (I almost typed
"reasonable", but changed my mind when I thought about what clients
consider reasonable <sigh>).

Beyond that, if you seriously want to support the parallel installation
scenario, I think you need to look at splitting out your application-
specific code from the main add-in. The main add-in checks which
application version it's loading in, then calls the application-specific
code in the outside DLL. This means your main add-in would reference the
2003 PIAs, I guess...

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[David Thielen]

We're just going to tell them tough and blame Microsoft

Hi David,

I'd say they need to install (and pay for?) both, not just one or the
other. I'd probably set them to "load-on-demand", then create a third
add-in (load automatically) to load the appropriate one, based on which
application version it has loaded into.

You might point out to them that Microsoft does not support parallel
installation of Office applications (and hasn't supported them for over
a decade). (I'm sure that's documented somewhere, on-line, but I don't
know where, right off-hand.) You yourself know that, from your ventures
into the VSTO technology. Given that fact, it shouldn't be surprising
that your software doesn't support that, either. (I almost typed
"reasonable", but changed my mind when I thought about what clients
consider reasonable <sigh>).

Beyond that, if you seriously want to support the parallel installation
scenario, I think you need to look at splitting out your application-
specific code from the main add-in. The main add-in checks which
application version it's loading in, then calls the application-specific
code in the outside DLL. This means your main add-in would reference the
2003 PIAs, I guess...

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question
or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

david@[email protected]
Windward Reports -- http://www.WindwardReports.com
me -- http://dave.thielen.com

Cubicle Wars - http://www.windwardreports.com/film.htm