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Unable to install Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office.

When trying to install VSTO 2005, I get the following error message;

Office 2003 Service Pack 1

Microsoft Office 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) is not installed on this computer. You must install an edition of Office 2003 that supports Micorosft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System before you can continue with installation.

This on a machine that has XP Professional SP2, MS Office Pro SP2 installed and activated.

It occurs whether or not I install it on top of Nothing, Visual Studio Pro 2005 or Visual Studio Standard 2005 or Visual Studio Standard 2003.

Does anyone have an idea why this is happening, despite the system meeting the requirements ? Ofcourse the VSTO may depend on frozen SP1, but I can't see that as viable.

Best,

Peter

Peter Chr. Ryskin

Did you upgrade your from a *non-pro* version Office XP to Office 2003 or did you do a clean install of Office 2003 *pro*?

Reza Chitsaz (MSFT)

Reza Chitsaz - MSFT

Hi, Thanks for the response.

I've done both: Same issue on a regular development machine (with all its messy settings) and on a clean bottom-up install (Which includes OS install from the ground up on a clean HD) which I've made specifically to ensure that, theoretically, I should have no issues with the install.

Peter Chr. Ryskin

Installing Office 2003 Pro SP2 via Office Update allowed me to proceed so I consider the issue resolved, if not debugged.

Peter Chr. Ryskin

Does Office have to be Pro version to work with Visual Studio 2005 Tools?
I have the small/medium business version. According to the prerequisites at
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/54ds2za4.aspx
it says:

The following software is required to install Visual Studio Tools for Office by itself:
One of the following editions of Microsoft Office 2003.

Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003.
Microsoft Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003.
Microsoft Office Excel 2003.
Microsoft Office Word 2003.
Microsoft Office Outlook 2003.*
Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 Trial.
Microsoft Office System Evaluation 2003 Enterprise Edition.

*The version of Outlook that is included with Microsoft Exchange Server client access licenses is not supported.

Doesn't that mean that Small/medium business version is ok, since for example Outlook by itself is ok?

I get the same error message like you even though I have installed Office 2003 SP2.

Thanks in advance
Magnus

ripern

Hi Magnus,

The upgrade path I mentioned in my post as one of the test-beds was, in fact, from SBS, and exactly with a PRO install -on top- (New key during install), and a following SP1-2 update. What struck me as funny was that the applications themselves still did Identify themselves as Office for Small Business in the About box, something which I didn't notice till right before I did the below.

I removed the OSB entirely, installed Office PRO & installed SP2 (Full file, manual download from www.officeupdate.com) which resulted in VSTO wanting to play ball.

My take is that (considering the other limitations on the OSB) you need the product as stated exactly above.

As an NB, if you do use VM's for testing such things, be aware that your Activation is real and counts against your license !!! Obviously :) I have a small row of office licenses now, hehe

Best,

Peter

Peter Chr. Ryskin

Hi Magnus

If you were supplying an Outlook Addin to a client machine, it should be sufficient.

But not for installing VSTO for developing applications.

VSTO for Excel and Word requires certain functionality that is available ONLY in the versions listed. And you can't tell VSTO you don't want to use this part, only Outlook. So VSTO requires one of the versions you list on the development machine.

-- Cindy Meister (Word MVP)

Cindy Meister

Thanks for your quick responses Cindy and Peter. I should have mentioned that the purpose of all this is to develop outlook add-ins. So what you're saying is that with SBS only I will never be able to install VSTO for development?

I guess I'll have to try getting hold of the Pro 2003-version.

Also, do you have any suggestions on tutorials for creating Outlook add-ins with VSTO 2005?

ripern

Here's a place to start

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms268878.aspx

-- Cindy Meister (Word MVP)

Cindy Meister

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