Need .NET add-in to work with future versions of Word.

[Alex Oren]

Hello,

I am writing an IDTExtensibility2 MS-Word add-in in C#. I would like
it to work in Word XP (2002) and subsequent versions as well (2003,
2005, ...)

As I understand, it is not a problem with a plain COM add-in (not
using .NET).

Is it enough to just download the Office XP PIAs and link to them?

What about features that changed between versions? For example
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.ApplicationEvents4 versus
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.ApplicationEvents3 for different
versions?

Please help.

Thank you,
Alex.

 

[Misha Shneerson]

In theory add-ins should be forward compatible - Office does not even
have version based hive for the COM add-ins. In reality this is not
that simple. MS does not give any guarantees that Office XP PIAs will
work with Office 2003. There might be also differences in behavior of
some OM methods. So do it on your own risk.

Since you are doing your own COM addin it would be a great idea to give
your add-in a certain degree of isolation. This can e achieved by
placing your addin into a separate AppDomain using the approach known
as shimming.
See
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...dno2k3ta/html/ODC_Office_COM_Shim_Wizards.asp

 

[Howard Kaikow]

there are differences between the office xp pia and the office 2003 pia.
likely there will be differences with future pias.

you will likely need version dependent code of some sort and debug furthr
when each version of office is released.

of course, the same, but less, problems occur using automation via vb 6,
i.e., not everything from earlier versions of office works unchanged inlater
versions of office.