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Tim Kempster
Posts: 2
Joined: 2025-09-24
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Dear Forum,
I have built a new Outlook plugin which ads some simple print preview buttons to Outlook. You can see it and download it here https://www.trayselector.com/download-outlook-print/
One of our test clients has reported that he couldn't install it with Office 2013. He might be using 32 bit x86 but I have so far not been able to establish that with him. Also he doesn't seem to be able to give me any log files or access to the install.
I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to test on these legacy office builds? Maybe an online service where you can spin up an instance and install the plugin on there.
Also I've done some basic research and there is some talk about having to ship PIAs with my product for earlier versions of Office but I'm not sure if that's true or how to do that if need be. Any help would be very helpful on that front.
I'm using a version of Addin-Express from Feb 2025 and using .Net version 4.7.2. I've setup the installer to install on a per user basis.
Hopefully someone can suggest a way forwards - thanks |
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Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express team
Posts: 19179
Joined: 2006-05-11
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Hello Tim,
Office 2003 is x86. What Windows version is installed on that machine? If it is Windows XP, you'll be unable to deploy your add-in as .NET Framework 4.X doesn't support Windows XP; see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/install/versions-and-dependencies. In this case no adxregistrator.log is generated.
Tim Kempster writes:
there is some talk about having to ship PIAs with my product for earlier versions of Office
Your add-in communicates with Office via the host application's object model. A PIA is actually a map containing binary addresses and/or offsets, your code is compiled to a binary form and your early-binding calls to the host's object model are sent to these addresses/offsets. As you see you would need to have a PIA for every Office version your add-in supports. To minimize this mess, we suggest that you deploy PIAs for the minimal supported Office version: when you create a new Add-in Express project, you specify the minimal supported version; when you let Add-in Express generate a setup project, the corresponding PIA(s) are included.
This approach has a drawback: say, you need to support Office version X but you also need to use a feature (say, a new method or property) which is only available in Office version X+1. Having no PIA for every supported Office version makes you use late binding (see System.Type.InvokeMember()) in this scenario.
And the final note. Select a reference pointing to an Office interop and set Embed Interop Types = True (see the Properties window); this setting allows you not to deploy that interop.
Find more details at https://www.add-in-express.com/creating-addins-blog/interop-assemblies-late-binding/ on our blog.
Regards from Poland (GMT+2),
Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader |
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Tim Kempster
Posts: 2
Joined: 2025-09-24
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Hi Andrei,
Thanks for that. The version of Office they are using is Office 2013 (not 2003 as you wrote). I think they are using Windows 11/10. The PIA or Interop file I'm shipping is version 15.0.0.0.
Does this change your response?
Tim |
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Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express team
Posts: 19179
Joined: 2006-05-11
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Hello Tim,
Oh, sorry for the confusion.
Tim Kempster writes:
Does this change your response?
Please disregard whatever is said about Office 2003. All remaining things are applicable to the general case.
Ask the user to send you screenshots and/or videos. This may help you find points of interest.
Regards from Poland (GMT+2),
Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader |
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