How would I go about registering Excel Add-Ins? I have third party DLL add ins which we have to now manually (through a long process I want to use InstallShield to automate) register on each users PC.
We have both Office 2003 and 2007 in our install base, so information on either or both would be great.
Since I did not recieve a reply, I have done some research and found out how I can do this. If anyone else has their way, a better way, or feedback would be great. But I thought I would help give to the community by giving some information back.
For both Office 2003 and 2007, if you place the .xla files in the [AppDataFolder]microsoft\addins they will automatically show up on the list of addins for that version of Office.
If you want to place them outside of this location, you need to edit this registry file, and add a key that's the name of the path and xla file: Office 2007 - [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Excel\Add-in Manager] Office 2003 - [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Add-in Manager]
SZ Key name = "C:\Mypath\to\the.xla" Value = ""
To then activate the add-ins you need to add a key to: Office 2007 - [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Excel\Options] Office 2003 - [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Options]
The key starts with OPEN# where # is the number, so the OPEN1 would be your first add in, etc.
SZ Key name = "OPEN#" Value = "C:\Mypath\to\the.xla"
All of the above I have tested on Windows XP and Vista.
I am working on now trying to figure out how to find what add-ins are already activated and add more to them by looping through the registry, I haven't even started and I tend to think this will be another rabbit hole chase for me. 🙂
