Registry Entry

[Gordon]

We have a VB6 Outlook add-in that works perfectly with XP. However, when we
try to install it on a Vista machine, it puts the registry entry into
HKEY_USERS rather than HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Can anyone help?

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

What type of installer are you using? How are you registering the addin?

 

[Gordon]

We are using Visual Studio Installer. We have not added any manual registry
entries and assume the visual studio installer knows what it is doing.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

That's not a good assumption necessarily. What VS Installer version are you
using, the one from VS 6 that's a cut down old version of InstallShield?

Are you using a designer class to create the registry settings?

If you use a designer the default is that it registers in HKCU. I use
InstallShield for my VB6 installations and always make sure that the
settings needed in HKCU are set up in the registry paths pane there.

 

[Gordon]

Microsoft Development Environment 6.0

Installed Products

Visual InterDev 6.0 (SP5) 50021-335-2254483-03512

When I installed it placed an Icon On my Desktop saying "Visual Studio
Installer".

I create a Visual Studio Installer Project (Visual Basic Installer).


I am using a designer class.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

I haven't used that old version of InstallShield Express in many years, so
my recollections are rather vague, but what I do in later versions of
InstallShield is to set the registry keys I want added for the addin
registration (LoadBehavior, FriendlyName, etc.) to the Users hive of the
registry in the registry settings pane and set the installer to let the user
choose current user or all users. The MSI generated by InstallShield then
puts the settings wherever is appropriate.

In that case I would probably use a class module to handle the
IDTExtensibility events instead of a designer class to let the registry
settings be guided solely by the MSI installer. Otherwise you can end up
with registration in both HKCU and HKLM.

The designer sets the registration to HKCU always, so I'm not sure why you
are getting registration in another hive unless you have something for that
set in your installer project.

 

[Gordon]

By setting the registry keys in HKCU, the add-in is now found and works
perfectly. On a machine with with Vista & Outlook 2003, all is fine. On a
machine with Vista & Outlook 2007, Outlook does not close, giving the
message "Microsoft Office Outlook has stopped working". Then it sometimes
closes, sometimes restarts and sometimes checks for damaged files.

Is this a known problem?

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

No, that's not a known problem with addins and Outlook 2007/Vista.

That usually indicates that either you aren't releasing all of your objects
or are taking way too long to release them, or that unhandled exceptions are
there. Usually Outlook 2003 is much more sensitive to unreleased objects
than Outlook 2007 is however.

Do you get any errors? Do you have error logging set up? What about
specifics on that Vista machine, any other addins running or other
applications that integrate with Outlook? I believe even the Vista calendar
gadget that integrates with Outlook can prevent it from shutting down
cleanly, so inventory any such application and turn them off to make sure
those aren't the problem.

 

[Gordon]

Fixed! It was problem with releasing the command bar. Thank you Ken