Office Client Developer Content and Resources : VBA

Developing Outlook 2010 Solutions for 32-bit and 64-bit Systems

angelgolfer — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:43:00 GMT

This post captures and summarizes information about developing an Outlook solution for customers who run 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Outlook 2010. Since developing Outlook solutions is a very broad subject, the article gathers information from various sources, and points to some of these locations for further details.

Bitness Compatibility Between Windows and Office 2010

Let’s first talk about the compatibility of the bitness of Windows, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Outlook. The term “bitness” refers to the distinction between 32-bit and 64-bit processor architectures and the associated compatibility of applications. In this blog, “bitness” is used to qualify the version of Windows, Office, Outlook, or an application built to suit a 32-bit or 64-bit processor architecture of a computer. Each Office 2010 application is available in a 32-bit version and 64-bit version. For Outlook 2010, the bitness of Outlook depends on the bitness of Windows and the bitness of any other Office application that is already installed on that computer. Here are the dependencies:

· On a 32-bit Windows operating system, you can only install 32-bit Office (and 32-bit Outlook).

· On a 64-bit Windows operating system, you can install either 32-bit Office (and 32-bit Outlook), or 64-bit Office (and 64-bit Outlook). The default installation of Office 2010 on 64-bit Windows is 32-bit Office (and 32-bit Outlook).

· If some other Office 2010 application is already installed on a computer, then the bitness of Outlook 2010 that you will install must be consistent. For example, if a 32-bit Excel 2010 is already installed on a computer, you can only install 32-bit Outlook 2010 on that computer. Similarly, if a 64-bit Word 2010 is already installed on a computer, then you can only install 64-bit Outlook 2010.

Default Installation Locations

The following are the default installation locations when you install Office 2010:

· For a computer running 32-bit Windows, typically the location is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\.

· For a computer running 32-bit Office on 64-bit Windows, typically the location is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\.

· And, for a computer running 64-bit Office, typically the location is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\.

Major Categories of Outlook Solutions

Outlook solutions fall into a few major categories:

· Add-ins written in managed languages (such as C# or Visual Basic), or standalone applications and add-ins written in unmanaged languages (such as C++ or Visual Basic 6.0). Note that Microsoft no longer supports Visual Basic 6.0.

· Macros written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

· Messaging API (MAPI) applications written in typically C++.

The following sections describe the issues that developers of each category of Outlook solutions have to be aware of when planning the availability of their solutions for Outlook 2010.

Managed Add-ins, and Unmanaged Applications and Add-ins for Outlook

Basically, the way to call the Outlook object model remains the same*, regardless of whether the add-ins are going to be run on a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Outlook 2010.

You do not need to recompile existing (32-bit) managed or unmanaged add-ins, if you expect the add-ins to continue to run only on computers with 32-bit Outlook installed.

In particular, for existing managed add-ins, make sure that you have built them using Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system 3.0, or Microsoft Office development tools in Visual Studio 2010, with the Any CPU option for target platform on the Build tab of the Project Properties dialog box. Add-ins built with such settings work for (both 32-bit and) 64-bit versions of Office 2010. If you used other settings, rebuild your managed add-ins using the specified settings so that they will run on computers with either 32-bit or 64-bit Outlook 2010 installed.

Any existing unmanaged, standalone application (in .exe) that runs outside of the Outlook process written for 32-bit Outlook does not require recompilation for 64-bit Outlook, as long as the application interacts with Outlook using the Outlook object model and not MAPI. (For MAPI applications, see the section “MAPI Applications for Outlook” below.) COM manages the marshaling from the 32-bit application to 64-bit Outlook.

However, if you expect any existing unmanaged add-in will be run on computers with 64-bit Outlook 2010, you must recompile the add-in for 64-bit Outlook 2010. To clarify, you will have one version of the add-in to run on 32-bit Outlook, and another version of the add-in to run on 64-bit Outlook. Because there is no 64-bit Visual Basic 6.0 runtime, existing unmanaged add-ins written in Visual Basic 6.0 targeting to run on 64-bit Outlook 2010 should be rewritten, for example, as a managed add-in in Visual Basic.

*Note that even though you make calls the same way if you are targeting an add-in to run on 32-bit Outlook 2010 vs 64-bit Outlook 2010, there are changes in the Outlook 2010 object model such that, if you adapt an existing add-in to use the object model of Outlook 2010, you must be aware of the following:

· Object model calls in previous versions of Outlook were based on the assumption that there was only one Exchange account per profile. This assumption is not correct in Outlook 2010, since there can be multiple Exchange accounts per profile.

· Existing add-ins that modify a command bar or use Application events for shortcut menus may not work as expected in Outlook 2010. Update these add-ins to use the Office Fluent user interface extensibility. For more information, see Extending the User Interface in Outlook 2010.

VBA Macros for Outlook

If you have existing macros written for (32-bit) Outlook, and you intend to allow users to run the macros on 64-bit Outlook 2010, you will have to recompile the macros using Visual Basic for Applications 7.0 (VBA 7), and use conditional compilation to assure backward compatibility as well as compatibility with 64-bit Outlook. You will need to update any Declare statements, as well as address pointers and window handles in user-defined types used by Declare statements. If your macros use any ActiveX controls, these ActiveX controls will have to be updated for 64-bit Outlook as well. For more details, see Compatibility Between the 32-bit and 64-bit Versions of Office 2010.

MAPI Applications for Outlook

If your existing 32-bit MAPI application is going to be running on a computer with 64-bit Outlook installed, you will need to rebuild your 32-bit application as a 64-bit application. Outlook 2010 provides a set of MAPI header files that support MAPI applications to work with both 32-bit and 64-bit Outlook 2010. Make sure you download these header files from Outlook 2010: MAPI Header Files and rebuild your MAPI application using these header files.

In general, the bitness of the MAPI application must be the same as the bitness of the MAPI subsystem on the computer that the application is targeted to run on. The bitness of the MAPI subsystem, in turn, is determined by and always the same as the bitness of the installed version of Outlook. So if you plan to develop a MAPI application that will be run on computers with either a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Outlook 2010 installed, you will need to build two separate versions of the application, one to work with 32-bit Outlook and one to work with 64-bit Outlook.

For more information about MAPI support for 64-bit Outlook, see Building MAPI Applications on 32-Bit and 64-Bit Platforms.

Aside from rebuilding MAPI applications, sometimes it's necessary to check the version of Outlook to ensure that a MAPI application calls API elements that are supported by the currently running version of Outlook.

To learn how to check the version of Outlook and whether the installed version of Outlook is 64-bit Outlook 2010, see How to: Check the Version of Outlook.

Also, to learn how to decipher Outlook version information and the expected values for different parts of a version string for certain released versions of Outlook, see How to determine Outlook version information.

Accessing Outlook Developer Help During the Office 2010 Beta Period

angelgolfer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:10:00 GMT

The help model in Microsoft Office 2010 for Office client applications such as Access, Excel, Outlook, and Word has remained the same as in Office 2007: when you click F1, you can choose to access help that is installed on your computer, or help available on the Office Web site.

During the Office 2010 Beta timeframe, you can access developer help only from the computer; online developer help from the Office Web site will be set up when Office 2010 RTMs. What all of this means is that when you click F1 to view help in a client application, you should make sure that Developer Reference is selected under Content from This Computer in the drop-down menu adjacent to Search.

In Outlook 2010 Beta, you may notice very slight discrepancies between the objects and members displayed in the object browser, and the objects and members described in the developer help that is installed on your computer by Outlook 2010 Beta. This is because the installed help was a snap shot of the developer help taken after the cut-off date for the Beta version of Outlook 2010. Even though there are some discrepancies, this version of the developer help is reasonably sufficient to provide what you need to know to use the new object model members in Outlook 2010 Beta.

The Office Developer Documentation team has made available even more recent versions of the developer help for Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, Visio, and Word. You can download these developer references at Office 2010: Developer References. These versions of developer help are more recent snap shots, and similar to the developer help installed by Office 2010 Beta, you are likely to find discrepancies between the objects and members displayed in the object browser of the Beta product, and the objects and members described in the downloaded version of the help. Nonetheless, this downloadable help may still change between now and when Office 2010 RTMs. Meanwhile, if you are developing a solution to test against an Office 2010 Beta product, you can refer to the installed or downloadable help to learn about the product, and implement your solution based on the Beta product.

So how do you view the versions of help that you obtain by downloading? The help files are in the same .HxS file format that shipped with Office 2007 and Office 2010 Beta. For example, an Outlook developer help file named outlook.dev.hxs was shipped with Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 Beta. The best way to view the help file is to use the client help viewer that is part of each Office client product.

Follow these steps to use the client help viewer to view the most recent version of outlook.dev.hxs that you download:

1. Close Outlook 2010 Beta if it is open.

2. Search for the location of outlook.dev.hxs installed by Outlook 2010 Beta. For a computer running 32-bit Windows, typically the location is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\1033. For a computer running 32-bit Office on 64-bit Windows, typically the location is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\1033. And, for a computer running 64-bit Office, typically the location is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\1033.

3. Rename that copy of outlook.dev.hxs installed by Outlook 2010 Beta as outlook.dev.beta.hxs.

4. Copy the version of outlook.dev.hxs that you downloaded from Office 2010: Developer References to the location you found in step 2.

5. Start Outlook 2010 Beta.

6. Make sure that Developer Reference under Content from This Computer is selected for your client help viewer. You can now view the help you downloaded using the client help viewer.

To view a more recent version of the developer help that you download for any of the other Office applications listed earlier, follow the same steps 1 to 6, by first closing that application, replacing the installed version of the help file by the version you downloaded, and restarting the application. Make sure that you have specified Developer Reference under Content from This Computer for the client help viewer in that application.

For Outlook 2010 Beta, other than the developer reference, you can also view new technical articles on MSDN:

· What's New for Developers in Outlook 2010. This article provides a comprehensive list of new features in the Outlook 2010 object model.

· Extending the User Interface in Outlook 2010. This article describes the numerous new ways you can customize the Outlook 2010 user interface in the Office Fluent ribbons, menus, context menus, and Office Backstage view. This article includes a sample add-in as a download.

· Programming the Outlook 2010 Solutions Module. This article elaborates on the much demanded new APIs in the object model to allow add-ins to customize the Navigation Pane under a new Solutions module. This article includes a sample add-in as a download.

· Shutdown Changes for Outlook 2010 Beta. This article describes important shutdown changes in Outlook 2010 Beta for add-in developers and IT administrators to ensure that Outlook shuts down quickly and consistently.

· Developing an Outlook Social Connector Provider. This article describes how to implement an Outlook Social Connector (OSC) provider that connects a third-party social or professional networking site with a user in Outlook, and allows the user to view social network data from that site without having to leave Outlook. This article includes a sample provider as a download.

The first three of these technical articles provide details and code samples in addition to related content in the Outlook 2010 Developer Reference. The last two articles currently offer the only source of documentation in their respective subject areas.

Developer Help Updates for Office 2010 Beta

dhale — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:58:00 GMT

In the intervening time between when we had to hand-off the Developer References to go into the Office 2010 Beta several weeks ago and now, the Office Developer Documentation team has been extremely busy adding new content about the new features. We have added hundreds of new topics to the references!

This post describes to Office VBA developers how to make sure they are viewing the most up to date version of the developer help for the Office 2010 client applications.

Please Pardon Our Dust!

As we gear up for the release of Office 2010, we are excited about the improvements we are making to how we deliver content updates via the Office Web site. However, as a result of that work, for the Beta we are only able to provide developer help in the “offline” mode (that is, the content is viewed locally from your hard drive). Don’t worry though, online refreshes of the developer help content will be up and running for the final release of Office 2010!

How to Update Developer Help

If you are a VBA developer and would like to have the latest Office 2010 Beta developer reference, just follow the steps below to update. These steps describe how to download the latest files (.HxS files), install them, and view them.

1. Download the reference(s) from Office 2010: Developer References and extract them to a location on your computer. The download contains help builds for the following developer help content:

Combined Office 2010 developer references (All of the below)
Access 2010 Developer Reference (MSACCESS.DEV.HXS)
Excel 2010 Developer Reference (EXCEL.DEV.HXS)
Outlook 2010 Developer Reference (OUTLOOK.DEV.HXS)
PowerPoint 2010 Developer Reference (POWERPNT.DEV.HXS)
Project 2010 Developer Reference (WINPROJ.DEV.HXS)
Publisher 2010 Developer Reference (MSPUB.DEV.HXS)
Visio 2010 Automation Reference (VISIO.DEV.HXS)
Visio 2010 ShapeSheet Reference (VISIO.SHAPSHEET.HXS)
Word 2010 Developer Reference (WINWORD.DEV.HXS)

2. Make sure to close any open Office 2010 Beta applications.

3. Copy the extracted HxS file(s) into the directory where Office 2010 Beta installed them. For a computer running 32-bit Windows, typically the location is:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\1033

For a computer running 32-bit Office on 64-bit Windows, typically the location is

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\1033

You should overwrite the existing versions of the files.

Viewing the Updated Help

Start the application for which you have updated the developer help file. Press F1 to open the client help viewer.

Make sure that you are viewing the local copy of help by ensuring that Developer Reference under Content from This Computer is selected for your client help viewer (shown below). You can now view the help you downloaded using the client help viewer.

Tip: Make sure you display the Tablet of Contents by clicking the little book icon in the toolbar of the client help viewer. It makes browsing the developer help much more intuitive.

A Final Note

In addition to the developer help, you can find dozens of articles, code samples, videos, and more showing you how to work with the awesome developer features in Office 2010 Beta on the Office Developer Center.

Technorati Tags: Office Development,VBA,Developer Documentation,Office 2010 Beta

We Get E-mails: Where Are the Object Members?

soliver — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:39:13 GMT

The object model reference documentation for the Office client applications (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, etc., etc.) provides detailed information about the associated properties, methods, and events for objects that are exposed through the API of each client application. This information is crucial if you develop applications that automate the client applications. You can find this documentation on both MSDN and within the help content that appears when you press the F1 key while using the Visual Basic Editor in one of the Office client applications.

The way this documentation is structured in the table of contents (TOC) in MSDN, the topmost topic node in the TOC is the object and under the main object topic node, you'll find the nodes for the associated properties, methods, and events.

For example, this is how Word's Document object topic and associated member topics are arranged in the TOC on MSDN:

From there you can easily see that there is a node to a topic ("Document Object Members") that lists all the members associated with the Document object.

But sometimes readers are not browsing the TOC. They might get to the object's main page through a link in a search result or from some other web link. The object's main page looks like this (again using the Document object as an example):

So we get e-mails--"Hey! Where is the list of object members?" For one reason or another, many readers end up on the main page for an object and expect to see a list of the object's members. While there isn't a list of all the object's members on this page, there is a link to the topic that shows all the members for an object. Unfortunately the link is tucked away at the bottom of the page under the See Also section, so it's easy to miss:

Clicking the <Object Name> Object Members link takes you to the topic that shows you all the object's members:

The story is similar for the "F1" help documentation. The main object topic has a link at the bottom that takes you to the topic that lists all the members for the object. Here's the Word Document Object topic in the client help viewer (note the link to the Document Object Members topic under See Also at the bottom):

The link then takes you to the Document Object Members topic where you can see all the objects listed:

Usage Analysis of the Access Developer Reference

Mike Stowe — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:07:00 GMT

The 2007 Microsoft Office System was released into the wild about a year ago. I’d like to share what we've learned about your usage of the Access 2007 Developer Reference since its release. BTW, I'm Mike Stowe, the programmability writer for Access.

The data that drives this analysis comes from users who are in a "connected" state while using the Access Developer Reference. When you're in a connected state, help topics are being served to the Help window from Office Online. This is the first time we've had the opportunity to collect usage data and comments from our users. David Hale's Let's Talk about Office VBA Help post contains more information about this connection and how it benefits everyone.

I'll begin by borrowing a chart from David's post. It summarizes the total page views for the top Office 2007 developer references.

I never tire of looking at this one. The Access topics receive, by far, the most views. The Excel and Visual Basic Core topics are also utilized fairly often. We've always known that the Access Developer community was large, but this is the first time that we've had data that compares the relative usage of each content set.

Note that the chart doesn't contain the actual number of page views. I can't share any specific numbers with you, but I hope that you find this analysis useful without them.

The Access Developer Reference is made up of several components. The Access object model help is the core component of the developer reference. Help for DAO, ADO, the Access SQL functions and the Access error messages are the other components included in the Access Developer Reference. In earlier versions of Access, the help topics for each of these components were scattered on your hard disk in separate .chm files. In Access 2007, we unified the components into one browsable, searchable unit.

The next chart breaks down the usage of the Access Developer Reference by component.

This chart reveals the single biggest surprise of our analysis. The error topics make up 1/3 of the page views! We had NO IDEA that this was the case. I'll discuss the ramifications of this finding later when we examine the most-viewed error topics.

Object topics

Which individual topics are used the most? Let's start by examining the top 20 object or collection help topics in the Access Developer Reference.

DoCmd. Form. Application. ComboBox. That's pretty much what I expected to see at or near the top of this chart.

Member topics

Next, let's take a look at the top 20 member topics.

The first thing you'll notice is that the most view topic, DataType Property, isn't part of the Access object model. This topic appears when you press F1 in the Data Type column while in table design view. It's also the most-commented topic outside of the error topics

I don't see any surprises among the actual object model topics in the rest of the chart.

Error topics

Now, let's examine the top 20 error topics.

As I said earlier, I can't share specific numbers, but the top three error topics tower over the rest of the topics in both page views and comments. The interesting data is in the comments left for each topic rather than the page views.

The comments reveal that the topics aren't appropriate for the audience. The topics contain developer-focused terminology such as "Null" and "primary key". The topics were written for a developer who would likely understand the issue and trap the error before it surfaces to their user. Most of the comments appear to come from information workers who just want to make their form work!

I'm going to start addressing these problems by rewriting the topics for the top three errors in a way that will better serve an information worker tasked with using an Access form.

Comment Analysis

The page view data is a useful for spotting usage trends, but comments are much more useful for improving individual topics. Examining all of your comments has revealed the following points:

The top error topics have been, by far, commented on the most.
The DataType Property topic has many people asking about data types for items such as phone numbers and social security numbers. The topic should be modified to clearly explain the relation of a field's Format and Input Mask properties to its data type.
The ValidationRule topics need many more examples.
The new help layout has spawned a couple of common usage issues. You should take a moment to view Quick Tips on using VBA Help with Office video if you've ever wondered why there isn't a table of contents or where to find a list of properties, methods, and events for a particular object.
There have been 84 specific "How do I?" requests.
74 topics contain a general request for code sample.

Most of the topics never reach a critical mass of comments, so the "How do I?" and code sample requests indicate where we should invest our time and resources.

The Bottom Line

The data clearly indicates that the top error topics should be rewritten. I'm working on top three error topics right now.

The DataType Property topic would be more useful if it better explained the relationship between a field's DataType, Format, and Input Mask properties. That's on my to-do list.

I'll prioritize and address "How do I?" and code sample requests as time allows. Requests that touch on the most-used object and members receive the highest priority.

I'd love to hear from you if you have any questions or comments about the Access Developer Reference.

Microsoft Office Excel 2007 VBA Reference Feedback

Siosalach — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:23:00 GMT

Greetings.

My name is Rod Chisholm and I am the Programming Writer for Excel client VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and Programmability. Our reference material is available in the box, on MSDN, and NOW on Office Online. This gives us the unique opportunity to gather ratings and feedback from our users to help strengthen our topics, and improve the help experience overall. As my manager, David Hale pointed out early this month in Let's Talk about Office VBA Help, Excel is ranked in the top three for hit counts on Office Online. So we are certainly getting traction and visibility. From all those hits approximately 1 out of 100 leaves a rating. Of those, about 1 out of 5 leaves a comment. With comments, there is less guess work as to why a topic gets attention, so the more, the merrier.

Are we listening?

Yes we are! For those who think that comments are dropped into a black hole, let me assure you that I have reviewed all the data and comments since the launch of Office 2007. Although there were a vast number of comments, most could be categorized in five or six areas. The areas of interest to me were the requests for codes samples, and the “how-to”, or “how do I” feedback. Both are key indicators that the reference material in these areas should be where time is invested. So, thank you for participating. You are making a difference.

Here is a breakdown of some trends and areas of focus for content improvement, based on site hits and your comments (special thank you to Mike Stowe, Access Programming Writer for help with data analysis):

Top Object Hits

Huge generators of site hits include Range, Application, Worksheet, Sheets, Workbook and Worksheets to no surprise. These Objects are used most frequently and essential to workbook navigation.

Top Member Hits

To me it looks like a pretty even distribution of hits, but the common denominator here is Range making up 10 of the Top 20. Range will be a primary focus for content ideas moving forward.

Top "How to" Topics

The bottom line is that Range and how to navigate within a worksheet seem to be the heavy favorites when it comes to hit counts and comments. So, look forward to content improvements, more code samples and additional topics around hot areas of Excel. Until next time, please keep the feedback coming. I'm listening.

For more information check out the Excel Developer Portal and the Excel Team Blog.

Please post a comment if you have any questions or concerns.

Cheers.

RdC ~Excel

Outlook 2007 Developer Reference updated on MSDN!

angelgolfer — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:08:00 GMT

The Outlook 2007 Developer Reference has been updated on MSDN on November 13, 2007! This Reference contains conceptual, reference, and programming task topics, guiding developers to program Outlook using the Outlook Object Model. This is the first update to the Reference on MSDN in ten months since January. Over the last ten months, more than fifty improvements and fixes involving hundreds of topics have been applied to this set of documentation. The following are some of the areas of improvement:

- Search and Filter – Clarified certain concepts about DASL and Jet queries, added new code snippets and programming task topics, including Filtering Items Using a String Comparison, How to: Search the Calendar for Appointments Within a Date Range that Contain a Specific Word in the Subject, and How to: Search the Calendar for Appointments that Occur Partially or Entirely in a Given Time Period,

- Enumerating, Searching, and Filtering Items in a Folder - Clarified how to obtain a writeable object from a row in a Table that supports read-write operations.

- AdvancedSearch method of the Application object – Clarified the limit of simultaneous searches.

- Address Book – Added a new programming task topic How to: Map a Display Name to an E-mail Address.

- Items, Folders, and Stores – Added a new programming task topic How to: Delete All Items and Subfolders in the Deleted Items Folder.

- NewMailEx event of the Application object – Added precautions to take when obtaining the Entry ID of the new item.

- OlUserPropertyType enumeration – Supplemented the constants in the OlUserPropertyType enumeration with corresponding MAPI type values. For example, the constant olDateTime maps to the MAPI type PT_SYSTIME.

- Automating Outlook from a Visual Basic Application – Clarified the security reason for a VBA application to use the trusted Application object intrinsic to the environment, except when the application intends to automate a separate instance of Outlook. All code samples in the Reference have been scrubbed to reinforce this concept.

I would like to thank Outlook MVP, Sue Mosher, who over the last year helped us improve our documentation by going through a large volume of the topics in the Outlook 2007 Developer Reference and giving us valuable feedback.

In case you are wondering, ten months seem to be a long time to wait for an update, the client applications of 2007 Microsoft Office system are capable of continuously refreshing developer reference content through Help in the product when you select to search and obtain content on Office Online! Through this mechanism, all the improvements and fixes included in this update on MSDN were actually already pushed on Office Online within a day after the corresponding topics had been modified. If this sounds novel to you, stay tuned, I will talk more about this next time.

Video: Quick Tips on using VBA Help with Office

dhale — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 01:28:00 GMT

There are some quick and easy things you can do to make sure you are getting the optimal VBA Developer Help experience when working with the 2007 Office System. Watch this three minute video to learn more.