COM Shared Add-in (Part 6)

Shared add-in support update for .Net Framework 2.0

To get the project working you need to do some more steps, i.e. get the shared add-in support update for .Net Framework 2.0 which solves the issue of Add-in not loading in target machines.

This update adds a new Shared Add-in Support Update for the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (KB908002) option to the Visual Studio 2005 prerequisites list. When you create a Setup project of a managed add-in, smart document, or smart tag, you must enable this option in the Setup project that will include the required redistributable updates to Office and to the .NET Framework.

To resolve this problem for Visual Studio 2005 developers, a redistributable version of the update for Visual Studio 2005 is available.

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
Download the VS2005-KB908002-ENU-x86.EXE package now.

After you install this update, whenever you create a shared add-in project in Visual Studio 2005, you must include the Shared Add-in Support Update for the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (KB908002) option among the prerequisites in the solution Setup project. To do this, follow these steps:

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the solution Setup project, and then click Properties.

2. Click Prerequisites.

3. Click to select the Shared Add-in Support Update for the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (KB908002) check box.

Now test the application in the development machine and verify that all is working fine.

Thus we are ready for deployment , though there are other blogs and forums suggesting different ways of deploying the add-in, using a managed add-in shim is the most feasible solution.