Chapter 6. COM Addins

In this chapter, you learn how to create Outlook COM addins, including property pages that are shown when the Tools

COM Addins

The VB.NET and C# projects associated with this book are available for download in shared addin and VSTO 2005 SE formats for Outlook 2007–only code. Other templates are also available for download. The templates are available for download on the Wrox Web site (www.wrox.com) as well as on my Web site at www.slovaktech.com.

Managed or Unmanaged Code?

COM addins can be written using many different languages and development platforms. Any language that can work with COM interfaces, either directly or indirectly using the COM Interop provided by the Microsoft Framework, can be used to write an Outlook COM addin. The language and development platform you use to develop COM addins depends on your familiarity with the language and development platform, and the versions of Outlook you plan to target with your addin.

The COM addin examples in this book use VB.NET and C#, with Visual Studio 2005 as the development platform. Examples for VB 6 development are also shown, as are examples for VSTO 2005 SE using VB.NET and C#.

Managed code is what's being promoted by Microsoft, in line with their move away from the use of unmanaged code. Managed code can use the new features of the .NET Framework, a richer development platform than the unmanaged Visual Studio 6 platform, ...

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