Outlook options without having outlook installed

[cornute]

I have created a project management software that has the option setting a reminder in Outlook. However, after getting it to work I realized I did not know a few things like:

1. Is it possible to install my program on a machine that does not have outlook and just not make that option available?

2. I do alot of programming on 2 different computers. One does not have outlook so when i load the source code into VB.Express the object library cant be found. Can i have the library installed without the program?

 

[JohnH]

1. That you can do. To detect I saw several forums recommended either look for key registry values or Try create automation Application object, example:

        Try
            Dim oApp As New Outlook.Application
            MsgBox("Outlook detected.")
        Catch ex As Exception
            MsgBox("Outlook not detected.")
        End Try

2. This you can only do if you install the Primary Interop Assemblies to the computer that does not have Outlook. (Office XP, 2003 and 2007) You can write code for the Outlook automation with this also, but not test run it without the actual object libraries available.

 

[Xancholy]

I have Office 2000 loaded on my test computer. I need my app to use features built into Office2003 like dictionary.

To do this I need to test for Office 2003

I try to load PIA for Office 2003 but it says O2003 has to already be loaded for the PIA to be installed.

So therefore, how can I run automation test if O2003 PIA cannot be installed ?

 

[JohnH]

I didn't have any problems installing 2003 PIA without Office present (Yes, I have actually tried this!). Of course you can't make a call to the library without it there, but I've also showed you how to do that.

 

[Xancholy]

That's strange. I tried installing O2003's PIA yesterday and it refused flat telling me to install O2003 first. Let me try again tonight.