Selecting a Microsoft Office Primary Interop Assembly version

Question

I'm writing a .Net application that utilises Excel. Any version of Excel from '97 or later is acceptable, but I don't know which version any particular client will have. Installing the Microsoft Office PIAs through a bootstrapper is no problem.

Which version of the PIA should I include in the installation package? Do I need every PIA version, or will one PIA version cover all required Excel versions?

You can only support the versions that you have access to. So you can test your code and answer customer support calls. You'll need an MSDN subscription if you want to support them all. — Hans Passant, Jan 24 '12 at 23:16
@HansPassant, fair call on support. All I'm doing is reading a large array of values. Hopefully they haven't changed that part of Excel to much! — Hand-E-Food, Jan 24 '12 at 23:48

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

6

Using the earliest PIA version should work, albeit unofficially - see MS Office PIAs "backward compatibility". Using a later version may or may not work, and is not recommended.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

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answered Jan 25 '12 at 03:53

PinnyM

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Selecting a Microsoft Office Primary Interop Assembly version

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