Redistribution of Office Interop Assemblies

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Redistribution of Office Interop Assemblies
 
Sebastian Dreier




Posts: 1
 Joined: 2017-05-24
Hello,

we are currently using the Add-in Express library (v8.9 HotFix build 4453) for an Outlook Addin. This addin consits of 3 components that are all using the following Microsoft Interop Assemblies (part of the Add-In Express setup):

- Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.dll
- Office.dll

Since we switched from Visual Studio 2013 to 2017 it is not possible anymore to "embed" those assemblies in every component without side effects.

We are now planning to deliver the above listed Microsoft Interop Assemblies within our client installation. Does Microsoft allow this? Do you have any information regarding the redistribution of Office Interop Assemblies (e.g. a license or EULA)?
Posted 03 Jul, 2018 12:55:03 Top
Andrei Smolin


Add-in Express team


Posts: 18821
 Joined: 2006-05-11
Hello Sebastian,

Here's a citation from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/designing-and-creating-office-solutions:

By default, Office primary interop assemblies (PIAs) do not need to be installed on end-user computers if the Embed Interop Types property of each Office PIA reference in the project is set to True, which is the default value. In this scenario, the type information for the PIA types that are used by your solution is embedded into the solution assembly when you build the project. At run time, the embedded type information is used instead of the PIAs to call into the Office application's COM-based object model. For more information about how types from PIAs are embedded into your solution, see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/interop/type-equivalence-and-embedded-interop-types .

If the Embed Interop Types property of each Office PIA reference in the project is set to False, Office PIAs must be installed and registered in the global assembly cache on each end-user computer that runs the solution. In most cases, the PIAs are installed by default with Office, but you can also include the PIA redistributable as a prerequisite for your solution. For more information, see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/9f672809-43a3-40a1-9057-397ce3b5126e.


Hope this helps.


Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
Posted 04 Jul, 2018 03:57:35 Top