0

I have a simple question.

I have a .NET web application written long ago that uses the Word interop assembly. It makes very small use of Word server objects. I now have to migrate it to a Win2012 IIS web app server, which plays only the role of a web server. Of course I found out that the Word objects are not installed on this new box.

Do I have to install a full blown MS word and use up an Office license on that server even though Word will never be used by anyone accessing the box except through this one app?

Is there some small runtime version of Word that I can install that only installs the Word Objects?

Dirk Vollmar
  • 172,527
  • 53
  • 255
  • 316
JonathanP
  • 1

1 Answers1

0

The marked "Answer" in the link provided by Jacob is relevant, although not a complete answer to your question. Supplementary to that:

Yes, in order to "interop" with any Office application that application needs to be installed on the machine calling it. And that does require a license. There is no "runttime" version of any Office application.

Depending on what your web application does, for the all the cited reasons in this discussion, you might want to consider migrating the functionality to leverage the Open XML file format (assuming the documents are NOT the old, proprietary *.doc files). That requires NO license, no installation of an Office application, cannot fail on or tie up the server and is tons faster in execution that "the interop".

Cindy Meister
  • 25,071
  • 21
  • 34
  • 43
  • Thanks, that confirms what I expected. I didn't see a straight forward yes/no answer so I gave it a shot. – JonathanP Dec 15 '15 at 21:25