Deployment of Visual Studio Add-in in VS 2012 - visual-studio-2012

I have created Visual studio add-in successfully.But I am confused to deploy this addin in another computers.I have go throgh the stackoverflow answers.But I did not get clear cut idea about this matter

You just need to copy YourAddIn.dll and YourAddIn.AddIn files to "c:\Users\username\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Addins\" folder on another computer. To create an installer you can start with Wix Template For VS2012 Addin Project.

Deploying an add-in requires to copy the add-in dll(s) to some folder and create a XML .AddIn file in a predefined folder where VS can locate it where a entry of the XML file points to the add-in assembly.
For articles about the prefedined folders for .AddIn files and about creating a setup see the "Articles about installing and uninstalling" section of my web site:
http://www.visualstudioextensibility.com/articles/add-ins/
To troubleshoot problems loading add-ins see my article:
HOWTO: Troubleshooting Visual Studio and Office add-ins
Visual Studio is a 32-bit executable, so the add-in dll and dependencies must be 32-bit.

Related

Develop Solution/Web Parts/Apps for SharePoint 2013 in Visual Studio 2012 (From Local Machine)

I have SharePoint Foundation 2013 installed in the windows server 2012.
Is it possible to develop SharePoint solution/web parts/Apps using Visual Studio 2012 in my local machine(Windows 7 64Bit) without having SharePoint installed in local machine?
if i need to develop SharePoint solution/web parts/Apps in visual studio 2012, do i need to install visual studio in the Server that contain share point Foundation 2013?
Cant i develop in local machine and deploy it to server?
Can someone help me on this issue?
Thanks.
Try this;
• How to Perform SharePoint Development On A Client Workstation
15 Feb 2011 by Bryant Sombke in Guides, Web, Windows 16 Comments 
One of the most difficult restrictions for a SharePoint developer to deal with can be the requirement to do development on a SharePoint server.  Personally, I prefer doing my development on my local machine, eliminating the need to establish a remote desktop connection to a different machine in order to write code.
Unfortunately, SharePoint development requires many DLL files which are included with an installation of SharePoint on a server.  To make matters worse, SharePoint 2010 requires an x64 server, further complicating the issue.  Fortunately, there is an easy workaround that can allow a SharePoint developer to be productive, even while using their laptop on the road without an available internet connection.
Copy the SharePoint DLLs
As I mentioned before, SharePoint development requires DLL files that are included with a SharePoint 2007 or 2010 installation.  The first step is to grab these off of a SharePoint server.  For SharePoint 2007, they are located in the hive at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\ISAPI\, and for 2010 at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\ISAP\.  Copy the DLL files in this directory from the server, and paste them at the exact same file path on your local machine.  Since your PC likely does not have SharePoint installed, you may have to create the directory structure yourself.
SharePoint 2007 DLL Directory
Register the Assemblies to the GAC
Now that you have the DLL files on your workstation, you will be able to include them as references in your Visual Studio projects just as you would with any other DLLs.  However, if you want them to auto-register with your project when you use a Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint template or a WSPBuilder template, you must register the DLL files in your local Global Assembly Cache.  To do this, open the directory on your workstation that contains the SharePoint DLLs and drag them into the C:\Windows\assembly\ directory.  This will register them with the GAC on your workstation, and Visual Studio should successfully find the assemblies when a template is loaded up.  Although these assemblies may be 64-bit, this will work fine even though your workstation may be 32-bit.
Global Assembly Cache
If you’ve successfully completed the two steps above, you should be able to write your code and successfully compile your project.  Once you generate your WSP file, you can then deploy it like any other WSP.
Please Use Caution
If you do development for both 2007 and 2010, you can do this for both on the same workstation; just be sure to complete both steps for each version.  Since the 2007 and 2010 assemblies have different Assembly Versions (12.0.0.0 and 14.0.0.0), you don’t have to worry about conflicts in the GAC.  Be sure to use caution, however, because in my experience, Visual Studio tends to grab the SharePoint 2010 version of the DLL even for a SharePoint 2007 project if they’re both registered on your workstation.  If this happens, remove the incorrect reference, and add a reference to the correct 2007 DLL from your 12\ISAPI directory.
From http://www.techerator.com/2011/02/how-to-perform-sharepoint-development-on-a-client-workstation/
You can develop SharePoint Apps from anywhere -- this is even more convenient when you're using the SharePoint 2013 development site template to do your testing on.
For farm/sandbox solutions things get more complicated...
If you want to develop webparts or other farm/sandbox solutions you need to have visual studio and sharepoint installed on the same machine (visual studio depends on the sharepoint dlls to build and debug properly). You also need to run Visual Studio as an admin for this scenario (so you'll need to be a local administrator for the machine in question).
It's possible to run SharePoint 2010 on Windows7, but this is not supported by SharePoint 2013 -- you'll have to run Windows Server for the development machine.
You can move your files from a development environment to your production SharePoint farm by building a WSP file for your farm solution on the development machine then sending it to your farm admin who can then deploy it to the production sharepoint environment... For a sandbox solution the site collection admin can add the solution file (WSP) to the site collection 'solution gallery' then active it (for more info on sandbox solution installation see the msdn documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/gg615450(v=office.14).aspx)
Hope that summary helps, for more info on setting up development environments see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ee554869(v=office.15).aspx
Yes, you can definately develop SharePoint solutions from your local machine where you dont have SharePoint installed.
For doing this you need to follow some steps -
Go to the server where SharePoint 2013 is installed and follow steps from 1 to 3
Go to Run and type "regedit"
Navigate towards HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office
Right click on 15.0 and click Export. Save the exported file
Now go to your machine where sharepoint is not installed and follow below steps:
Now open Registry on your machine
Import the 15 directory which was exported from SharePoint server
Open Powershell
Run this command
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\web server extensions\15.0\" -Name "Location" -Value "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\"
Now open visual studio 2013 and you will be able to create SharePoint 2013 project without error.

Create a setup file in Visual Studio 2012

I have a windows form project and I want to create an installation package for this project. How can I create a setup file in Visual Studio 2012 ? My project is without data base.
How to create a Setup package using Visual Studio 2012.NET?
Microsoft released the Visual Studio Installer Project extension in April of this year, the catch is it's for VS2013, not VS2012.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2014/04/17/visual-studio-installer-projects-extension.aspx
The 'lite' InstallShield option remains in VS if you need something with more flexibility.
Advanced Installer also has a free version that includes an extension for VS. This is a commercial tool but the extension is included in the free edition as I said, for more advanced features you need to purchase a Professional or higher licenses and edit the project direct from Advanced Installer GUI, not from VS. (but you can still use the project in the VS solution, so you get the MSI built at the end of your build process)
Visual Studio setup projects (vdproj) are not supplied with VS 2012
There are several solutions for you:
You could use InstallShield instead.
If you don't want or
can't use InstallShield for any reason, you could try WiX. This
toolset builds Windows installation packages from XML source code.
If you only use Windows Presentation Foundation (.xbap), Windows Forms (.exe), console application (.exe), or Office solution (.dll) you could look at ClickOnce. To use this you should right click on the project file in the solution explorer and select "Publish" from the pop-up menu.
Alternatively you can use previous version of Visual Studio (2010).

WSPBuilder for vs 2012

I am new to SharePoint 2013. I am using trial version vs 2012. I want to use the WSPBuilder to develop the web parts. I have install the WSPBuilder and it is not showing in vs 2012.
I have used the below link but not solved the issue.
http://gblsharepoint.blogspot.in/2013/01/using-wspbuilder-with-visual-studio-2012.htm
I have done the copy and past the "Microsoft Visual Studio" and "Microsoft Visual Studio Macros" hot applications and given the version as "11.0". It is working.
Can any one help me
WSP Builder had it's use back in the SharePoint 2007 days, where Visual Studio had no support for SharePoint packages.
Ever since the release of Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012 there is no real need for WSP Builder anymore.
In order to use Visual Studio 2012 with SharePoint 2013 you will have to install an additional package though. To install it, launch the Web Platform Installer (or download the installer if it's not on your server from http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx). In the installer, search for SharePoint. From the results, install Microsoft Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012.
Launch Visual Studio and when you create a new project/solution you should see a Office/SharePoint category. Underneath there, pick the SharePoint Solutions category. If you just want to create a single webpart in a WSP file, then the easiest is to pick the "SharePoint 2013 - Visual Web Part" project item. That will set you with a project containing a feature, a visual webpart that you can extend with your own code, etc. Build the webpart and you will end up with a WSP file in your debug/release folders that you can deploy to your server (or by simply pressing F5 it will automatically deploy it to the farm / site you specified when creating the project).
If you use F5 to deploy, don't forget to add the webpart to a page after deployment as Visual Studio will not do that for you (Edit a page, switch to the insert tab in the ribbon, pick your webpart. Your webpart will be under the 'custom' category if you don't modify the elements.xml file of the webpart).

Error deploying VSTO Office addin

I'm having some issues deploying a Visio addin.
Running the VSTO file works on my computer, but whenever I try and move it to any other user's computer it throws an error on deployment.
I thought it might be a setting I'd set in the project properties so I created an entirely new plugin project and set it to display a message box on startup.
The error I'm getting is:
An error occured during customization install.
The expected element "addIn" was not found in the XML.
This is caused by an issue with Clickonce.
I found a workaround by installing the addin using MSI.
This Guide was a lot of help.
Taken from the section about registry settings for the msi installation:
It is important to note the ‘|vstolocal’ value appended to the end of the Manifest value. This informs the VSTO runtime that it is locally installed and to not invoke the ClickOnce installer.
I'm having the same issue with our Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint add-in. The installation of the msi runs perfect.
When starting Word for example, the Add-in itself gets 'installed' and then I receive the error.
I have added |vstolocal to the registry, which is located in the HKCU tree.
The projects is a Visual Studio 2010 project, build on TFS 2008. The installation on an Office 2010 goes well, the error only occurs when Office 2007 is on the machine.
Anything else I'm overseeing?
The solution to my experience with this issue was the one given by Joeri on the 8th July - install Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime on the target machine.
This is an issue with the version of Visio your add-in targets versus what is installed on the client machine. AddIn is an element that is new with the 2007 versions of Office. More than likely the client is running Visio 2003.
Some times the Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime is installed on the machine but the vsto file fails to find it. In this case try if you can manually execute the installation command line.See example below (replace X with your own drive letter, path, and file name):
"c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTO\10.0\VSTOInstaller.exe" /Install file:///X:/XXX/XXX.vsto 

Not a valid Office Add In

I developed a new Office 2007 addin using VS 2008 and VSTO. after this I go to
Office->Excel Options->AddIns->COM AddIns and GO... If I select the .dll which I ve created I get the error
'<path>' is not a valid Office Add In.
If I run it using the Visual Studio 2008 at my development machine, it works fine and I see the add-in.
I searched so many posts but didn't get a solution.
Excel kept rejecting the Add-In, so the solution for me was doing it directly via the registry.
Save the below text as a .reg file, replace the Manifest path and FriendlyName to suit your PROJECT and double click the reg file to add the key to the Registry.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\PROJECTExcelAddIn]
"Manifest"="file:///C:\\TFS\\Pg.PROJECT\\PROJECTExcelAddIn\\Src\\PROJECTExcelAddIn\\PROJECTExcelAddIn\\bin\\Debug\\PROJECTExcelAddIn.vsto"
"FriendlyName"="PROJECTExcelAddIn"
"LoadBehavior"=dword:00000003
"Description"="PROJECTExcelAddIn - Excel add-in for PROJECT."
VSTO does not create COM Addins. You will need to install your add-in on non-development machines. The article Adding the Office Primary Interop Assemblies as a Prerequisite in your ClickOnce installer at http://blogs.msdn.com/vsto/archive/2008/05/08/adding-the-office-primary-interop-assemblies-as-a-prerequisite-in-your-clickonce-installer-mary-lee.aspx will get you started.
Actually, you'll have to publish the addin. Then, the Visual Studio will create a folder in Debug folder named app.publish folder with other folders in and, the important thing, a setup file named setup.exe.

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