Cannot install add-in for outlook 2007?

Question

I'll explain here what I have done and I will be really grateful if someone helps me. I've seen there are some posts about this problem, but I want to know if I made some mistakes.

I developed add-in for Outlook 2007 (.NET Framework 3.5) using VS2008 and C#. When I finished, in Solution Explorer, right-click on "Solution(my project)" and clicked on Add New Project->Other Project Types->Setup and Deployment->Setup Project.

In this new project I have tab File System with 3 folders:

• Application folder
• User's desktop
• User's program menu

I clicked right click on Application folder->Add->Project Output---> Primary output (My Project)

After all this, in the Debug folder of added setup project there are setup.exe and MyProject.msi files, but when I install it on other computer, there's no add-in installed in Microsoft Outlook :(

What I did wrong??

Answer 1

Unfortunately, deploying an Outlook add-in involves more than just creating a default setup project in Visual Studio. In particular, you need to add some registry entries to your setup project, which are required by Outlook to recognize your add-in; and you need to make sure that the prerequisites are installed. These two MSDN articles should get you started:

• Deploying a Visual Studio Tools for the Office System 3.0 Solution for the 2007 Microsoft Office System Using Windows Installer (Part 1 of 2)
• Deploying a Visual Studio Tools for the Office System 3.0 Solution for the 2007 Microsoft Office System Using Windows Installer (Part 2 of 2)

Since you are targeting Outlook 2007 (rather than 2003), using ClickOnce is a (supposedly easier) alternative to using a setup project:

• Deploying Solutions for the 2007 Office System with ClickOnce Using Visual Studio 2008 Professional

Answer 2

Thank you very much for the post