Form region not appearing on machines I deploy to?

[Mark B]

OL2007, VS2008, C#, VSTO

My form region is not appearing on machines I deploy to even though it
appears fine on the development machine.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386301.aspx#Deploying says:

Deploying a Form Region
Form regions are deployed automatically with the associated Outlook add-in.
Therefore, you do not have to perform any special tasks to deploy a form
region. For more information about deploying add-ins, see Deploying Office
Solutions (2007 System).

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Is the registration for your form region there? Is it registered for
whatever MessageClass it's supposed to work with?

 

[Mark B]

Yes, I get the setup to add the following key on the target PC:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\FormRegions\IPM.Note]
"MyAddinFormRegion"="=MyAddin"

I checked what it was on my development PC and it was:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\FormRegions\IPM.Note]
"MyAddin.MyAddinFormRegion"="=MyAddin"

So then I manually changed it on the target PC to match the development PC's
key value.

It still didn't show.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

What is that registry key doing? Does it point to the location where the XML
for the form region is located? Does the key match the addin ProgID? Usually
if I do a form region I set it up to either supply XML using a location for
the XML in that key, or I supply the ProgID of the class where the form
region is defined. Usually that would be something like MyAddin.Connect.

Also, please put the preceding part of a thread in your reply. It gets way
too hard to follow things if you just snip to your own replies.

 

[Mark B]

The Key value I entered matches the ProgID. If I right-click the add-in
project, select Properties and select the Application tab, the value under
"Assembly name" is the value I used for the Key value. I put an = sign
before it:

=MyAddin

I didn't use any double-quotes.

I would like to test the alternate method of pointing to the location where
the form region XML is but I haven't been able to find it.

I am guessing that the programmer here who first created the form region
used Visual Studio, Right Click, Add New Item>>, Office>>, Outlook Form
Region (template) wizard to automatically create it. It's an adjoining
region that shows below the reading pane. I have looked under the form
region object's .cs, .designer.cs and .resx objects but can't see any
reference to an XML file. Is there one? Do you know where it would reside?
If so what's the best method to reference it?


TIA

What is that registry key doing? Does it point to the location where the
XML for the form region is located? Does the key match the addin ProgID?
Usually if I do a form region I set it up to either supply XML using a
location for the XML in that key, or I supply the ProgID of the class
where the form region is defined. Usually that would be something like
MyAddin.Connect.

Also, please put the preceding part of a thread in your reply. It gets way
too hard to follow things if you just snip to your own replies.

Yes, I get the setup to add the following key on the target PC:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\FormRegions\IPM.Note]
"MyAddinFormRegion"="=MyAddin"

I checked what it was on my development PC and it was:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\FormRegions\IPM.Note]
"MyAddin.MyAddinFormRegion"="=MyAddin"

So then I manually changed it on the target PC to match the development
PC's key value.

It still didn't show.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

If the form region was designed inside of VSTO then you usually won't see
the separate XML for the form region, a different type designer is used
then. For VSTO you usually would see the "=MyAddin" type registry entry for
the form region.

You might want to reference the material on form regions at
www.outlookcode.com. There's a lot of information there and links to samples
and posts on the forums there on problems. That might point out something
I'm missing.

 

[Mark B]

Thanks Ken. The issue was solved after I posted a question to that forum. I
was referred there to
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsto/thread/d0b489c5-5824-40c3-86c4-7cd765f0b56d/.

In that post the following text was relevant:

"I talked to one of the form regions testers about this, and he said that
the value of this key:

ChangeContactsDisplay.MyForm --- REG_SZ --- =ChangeContactsDisplay

needs to match what you used as the folder name [Key Name] in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Office/Outlook/Addins to store the
FriendlyName, Description, LoadBehavior, and Manifest registry keys. "

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