VSTO add-in: Reference in the manifest does not match the identity of the downloaded assembly

Question

_{Tuesday, March 26, 2019 10:05 AM}

I have developed an VSTO add-in for Excel in C# as a Class Library. The add-in takes a third-party .exe as a reference. The sole purpose of the add-in is to exploit the functionality of the referenced .exe.

I now try to publish the add-in using ClickOnce. When I try to install the add-in it gives me an error: Reference in the manifest does not match the identity of the downloaded assembly ThridParty.exe

Looking for a solution online a lot of people suggest the following:

In project properties -> Application tab -> Resources -> checkbox Icon and manifest, the setting "Embed manifest with default settings" caused the problem. Setting it to "Create application without a manifest" fixes the problem. 

I am quite a novice at developing in VSTO and C#, but as my understanding goes, the provided solution above does only work if my output type was an application. The same goes for a lot of the other solutions I have found online.

Can someone explain how I can publish my add-in with the third-party referenced .exe-file?

All replies (2)

_{Wednesday, March 27, 2019 6:52 AM}

Hi STHOH,

Here I found a thread of this issue maybe you can refer to:

Error deploying ClickOnce application - Reference in the manifest does not match the identity of the downloaded assembly.

Regards,

Kyle

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_{Wednesday, March 27, 2019 9:52 AM}

Hi Kyle,

Thanks for helping out.

I had indeed looked at a lot of forum posts like that, but it never seemed to solve the problem. The reason for this is that I assumed the problem was with my .dll manifest. Turns out the problem was with the referenced .exe.

Here is how I solved the problem if anyone is in the same situation:

Luckily, the third-party .exe was open source, so I was able to download the sourcecode and rebuild and publish it with the "Create application without manifest" option.

This solved the problem. When I added the new .exe and published my VSTO .dll via ClickOnce everything went smooth.

The question is why this happens. Is it a bug, or is there a reason for this to happen? Seems like a lot of people have the same issue

Regrads,

STHOH