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I'm creating a COM add-in for Outlook and I'm trying to target all 'still used' versions of Outlook: 2003, 2007, 2010. However, the add-in's UI (which is rather simple, a CommandBar) doesn't display in Outlook 2003.

The version of the Interop.Outlook library I am using is version 12, which is the smallest one I can find when adding references in VS2010. I think that this version is a step beyond the Interop library for Outlook 2003...but I'm not sure.

Questions:

  1. Is my assumption correct? That using Interop.Outlook version 12.0 is beyond the Interop for Outlook 2003, and that I should revert to a smaller version (10.0 maybe?). This would explain why I can't retrieve Outlook 2003 object model and add some UI to it.

  2. How could I use the previous version if this is indeed the case (I cannot find it in the references list for VS2010)?

Thanks!

Alex
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1 Answers1

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The associated version of interop assemblies for MS Office 2003 is 11.0, so you'll need to target that version.

Assuming you are using VSTO, in order for you to create a single VSTO addin that targets MS Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 you'll need to use VSTO 2005 SE. However this runtime VSTO version only works in Office 2010 x86, so if you also need to target x64 version of Office 2010 you're out of luck.

I know that you can target VSTO 2005 SE with Visual Studio 2008, but with Visual Studio 2010 I never tried it, so I'm not sure if it is possible.

João Angelo
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  • Thanks for the quick answer. Do you know how good forward compatibility is between 11.0 and 12.0 or 14.0? I.e. Would you expect any problems to arise on Outlook 2007 or 2010 if using the 11.0 version of Interop assemblies? – Alex Apr 18 '11 at 12:24
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    I never had any trouble with compatibility on more recent Office versions. The only downside is that you cannot use features that were introduced in later versions. – João Angelo Apr 18 '11 at 13:16