Office Add-ins ANYONE?

[Austin]

I have been looking for an installer package to SIMPLIFY the amount of work required to deploy an Office Add-in. So far, not much joy as all of them are geared more to installing applications.

Installing a Microsoft add-in is very differnt than installing a simple application in that before I install ANYTHING I must first determine the version (or versions as there may be more than one) of Office on the client machine, and the version of Windows being used. Additionally I must install the correct interop assemblies for the specific Office version and the run times for Shared Add-in Support and/or Visual Studios Tools for Office. For what ever reason these run times are not available from IA and I see no way to add them.

Currently my project includes 14 interop assemblies, again I see no easy way to deploy them.

Finally, our addins make use of other MS technologies (example: Windows Media Encoder) and I see no way to define them as pre-requisits. (Different version of Windows require differnt versions of the encoder.)

I suppose I can go script happy and spend days building scripts, but to be honest I have done that in Visual Studios (VB) and at best its a kludge of a work around and is both time consuming and a royal pain. For the cost of this installer one would think it should simlify deployment, not force the developer to learn yet another @%_(@$&7 languge or scripting engine. sigh...

Has anyone used IA to deploy an Offie add-in and if so can you give me a brief idea how it was done?

Thanks

[SteveDude]

Most of my installs deal with add-ons or extensions to other programs, Office, Corel, Explorer as well as updates to other programs installed using other installer technologies.

A big chunk of my time was spent writing my own PreReq's. Once done they can be reused over and over again. Personally I think that is one place where IA shines, is it at least you have that capability.

If I ever get caught up, doesn't look like it will be anytime soon, I might let go of some of those.

[Austin]

A big chunk of my time was spent writing my own PreReq's. Once done they can be reused over and over again. Personally I think that is one place where IA shines, is it at least you have that capability.

Oh I agree, if someone wants to spend lots of time writing scripts just about anything can be done. (Or so I have been told) But the main reason I am looking for a quality installer is so I don't need to invest the time. Heck, if I am going to do that I may as well write every thing in Visual Studios. :?

[davemcl]

We specifically moved to IA for this type of deployment. Writing pre-reqs in IA is far simpler than any other product IMHO. Ive been through Wise and IS over the last 7 years and our deployment today is a lot easier to maintain than it has ever been.
The ease at which you can reuse pre-reqs is also a big plus, also no other product integrates the pre-req installation in the main dialog quite as well as IA.
FWIW we deploy on Office XP, 2003 and 2007.

Dave

[SteveDude]

IA is a toolbox. A hammer is a proven tool, but doesn't automatically build a house. It would be pretty difficult to build one without one. The downfall is. you must also use a whole gammut of other tools to accomplish the task.

In IA's toolbox (especially in the current version), I have had to resort to no other toolbox to accomplish what I need when it comes to installations. If it doesn't support something directly, you have a way to add your own reusable tools, via scripts, add-ons, pre-req's, etc...

I consider it a complete and stable solution, lacking only one thing...

Making Autorun programs are powerful, but in my opinion useless because of the forced branding and caption bar. For that reason alone I use another company's autorun maker.

[Austin]

[quote=

I consider it a complete and stable solution, lacking only one thing...

Making Autorun programs are powerful, but in my opinion useless because of the forced branding and caption bar. For that reason alone I use another company's autorun maker.[/quote]

I find two real negatives. I have pretty much been able to use trial and error to figure out how to use it in my senario but I have to tell you that the lack of documentation and/or examples was a HUGE issue. There is no reason for this and I honestly do not understand the lack of documentation.

Second issue, like you I HATE the forced branding and am looking at alternative software for installations. We spent a lot of time and effort to present out products in a professional manner and at no time did we ever contemplate doing free advertizing for anyone else or having it stick out like a sore thumb to our own work.

[SteveDude]

If you need a Windows Installer based solution, I have found nothing better than IA, and I've tried most in my 20 plus years of programing.

For Autorun's I use AutoPlay Media Studio, done by a good company, good products, strong user base, but their flag ship Windows Installer technology is weak and comprehable to IA's lowest end installer. It is also plaqued with problems installing COM on Vista like most other installers I tried do. IA and InstallShield are the only ones that handle this well, but what is funny, is InstallShield's latest version has problems installing it's own stuff.

I haven't found anything that comes close to MSI coding, and since I used Wise for years, it was a very easy tansition.