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I created an Outlook addin. It does nothing special, just adds a menu with one menu item. I followed the installer creation tutorial from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mcsuksoldev/archive/2010/10/01/building-and-deploying-an-outlook-2010-add-in-part-2-of-2.aspx.

It installs and works properly on a normal windows desktop installation, but I cant figure out how to do it in a Citrix XenApp environment. I can install it using the installer in the same profile where the Outlook is installed successfully. But when Outlook is run, it is in the "Inactive Application Addins" section when I view it from the Trust Center menu, and it wont activate properly. If I open the Manage COM Addins menu, it displays "Load at Startup" as my addin's Load Behavior. If I try to activate it manually from this menu, nothing happens, and if I open it again, Load Behavior will change to "Not Loaded. The Managed Add-in Loader failed to initialize."

Anyone encountered this or something similar before? Thanks in advance.

Altealice
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  • I looked at the instructions you followed @Altealice and I'm wondering if you created your registry keys under HKEY_CURRENT_USER as the documentation suggested? If so, you may want to move your add-in's registry keys to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, which would allow all users to access it under Citrix. If this is not the issue, please confirm you are installing your add-in for Outlook 2010 (as opposed to Outlook 2007). – joeschwa Feb 01 '13 at 04:49
  • @joeschwa I've tried both HKCU and HKLM, no luck. :(. I am installing the add-in to Outlook 2007. Should something be different? – Altealice Feb 01 '13 at 07:18
  • When I ran it on a normal windows desktop installation, I was using Outlook 2007. It worked fine there. – Altealice Feb 01 '13 at 07:53
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    Office 2007 (and by extension Outlook) had an issue where VSTO add-ins did not load correctly. You can read about it here: [link](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976811). The resolution involves installing a hotfix and manually entering the registry (as well as having registry keys under HKLM). If the Citrix box was not updated with this patch, this could be the issue. – joeschwa Feb 01 '13 at 16:24
  • Oh, I see. I will try this hotfix when I get back to the office. Thanks! – Altealice Feb 01 '13 at 16:46
  • I installed MS Office 2007 SP3 which should have that hotfix. No luck. :( – Altealice Feb 05 '13 at 02:30
  • Did you also perform the manual edits in the registry to activate the hotfix (see link in prior comment) and confirm that your registry keys are under HKLM? – joeschwa Feb 05 '13 at 03:06
  • Yes, I did the registry edits. – Altealice Feb 05 '13 at 03:08
  • On the Citrix box is the LoadBehavior registry value for your add-in set to 3 (loaded at startup)? If not, what value is it at and what happens to the value and the add-in when you reset it to 3 and launch Outlook? – joeschwa Feb 05 '13 at 03:43
  • So what happened with this in the end? :) – Boris Feb 07 '14 at 12:59
  • We, fortunately, dropped the Citrix requirement. I didnt get to resolve it. – Altealice Oct 10 '17 at 05:13

1 Answers1

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If it's installing but inactive then it's probably throwing an exception upon startup.

I'd wrap all of your startup code (ThisAddIn_Startup function inside your ThisAddIn.cs) inside a try {} catch {} and log all errors out to disk so you can see why outlook is disabling your addin.

Have you tried setting the VSTO_SUPPRESSDISPLAYALERTS environment variable to see if you can get outlook to give you more info?

(BTW I have found outlook VSTO's to be flaky. Sometimes they just refuse to install and work.)

Rocklan
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