Share via

VSTO add-in deployment and licensing

SCS 0 Reputation points
2024-08-31T09:03:55.4733333+00:00

I am currently working on Microsoft Office VSTO add-ins for excel, powerpoint and outlook. I am currently distributing my add-ins via the "publish" tool within visual studio (resulting in the setup file, the manifest file and the application files) to my clients. However, the problem with that is that when downloading those files from a webpage, clients get a warning message from the browser regarding security concerns.

Question 1: How can I build a proper windows installer for my VSTO add-in, to ensure that clients only need to download and execute one file, and further do not get any security warnings?

Moreover, I have not yet established a proper licensing mechanism for the VSTO add-in.
Question 2: Are there any solutions (e.g., sendowl, cryptolens, etc.) and documentations you can recommned for implementing a proper licensing system?

Outlook
Outlook
A family of Microsoft email and calendar products.
4,075 questions
PowerPoint
PowerPoint
A family of Microsoft presentation graphics products that offer tools for creating presentations and adding graphic effects like multimedia objects and special effects with text.
310 questions
Excel
Excel
A family of Microsoft spreadsheet software with tools for analyzing, charting, and communicating data.
1,983 questions
0 comments

1 answer

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Steve Rindsberg 1 Reputation point MVP
    2024-09-06T16:16:53.96+00:00

    Question 1: How can I build a proper windows installer for my VSTO add-in, to ensure that clients only need to download and execute one file, and further do not get any security warnings?

    As to the last question, I don't think there's any way around the security warnings. Files that arrive from the internet have something MS calls Mark Of The Web. Once the file is downloaded, the user can clear this in the file's Properties dialog by clicking Unblock here:User's image

    If it's left uncleared, they'll get warning messages. Unfortunately, I don't believe there's any way around this, though it might help to distribute files inside a ZIP archive. But then the user has to know how to extract the enclosed files.

    0 comments

Your answer

Answers can be marked as Accepted Answers by the question author, which helps users to know the answer solved the author's problem.