VS Community 2013 cannot add reference to office.interop

Question

My settings : - Office 2010 is fully installed and running with default settings including .Net development, - Office 2010 Primary Interop Assemblies (v14) are installed (checked with control panel programs list)

Problem : In C# or F# projects, I cannot add a reference to Microsoft.Office.Interop in the Solution Explorer window of Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition. Interop are not listed anywhere (COM, Assemblies,...)

Question : Does VS 2013 Community Edition forbid reference to Office PIA as opposed to full VS 2013 PRO ? If not, what should I check ?

Thanks.

Have you tried looking for the specific application, such as `Microsoft Excel 14.0 Object Library`? — John Koerner, Jan 25 '15 at 21:49
@John Koerner : Thanks. I could add Microsoft Word 14.0 Object Library and could perform standard object creation and manipulation. Please fill an answer if you wish and I will accept. — FZed, Jan 25 '15 at 22:09
The PIAs are obsolete, you should be using the Embed Interop Types feature today. Just pick the reference from the COM tab. — Hans Passant, Jan 25 '15 at 22:15
@Hans : I missed your 15 vote [answer](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21013912/can-i-still-use-microsoft-office-interop-assemblies-with-office-2013/21018418#21018418) from one year ago. Not enough search effort on my side... — FZed, Jan 25 '15 at 22:27

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 25 '15 at 21:50

The only real difference between the Community and Pro SKUs is that Community omits the Office dev scenarios.

My guess is that the list of dirs that are used to populate the "add reference" dialog is modified in Community, with well-known Office binary dirs removed. This is just speculation, but it would explain what you are seeing.

If you can find the location on disk of the PIAs, you should still be able to add a reference via plain "browse." AFAIK, Community doesn't explicitly block this, it just doesn't help like Pro+.

Thanks @latkin. I could make it with John Koerner comment. By the way, congrats for your blog entries ; very informative. — FZed, Jan 25 '15 at 22:12

John Koerner · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-25T22:38:50.433

1

There is no generic reference for Office, rather, they are application specific. Under the COM tab, you can add a refernce to any of the following. The version number will vary based on the version of Office you have installed.

Microsoft Excel 14.0 Object Library
Microsoft Outlook 14.0 Object Library
Microsoft Powerpoint 14.0 Object Library
Microsoft Word 14.0 Object Library

edited Jan 25 '15 at 22:38

answered Jan 25 '15 at 22:11

John Koerner

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VS Community 2013 cannot add reference to office.interop

2 Answers2