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Announcing Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005 Beta

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Welcome!

Welcome to the start of the Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System, Version 2005 Beta program. This technology enables Visual Studio .NET developers to write managed Visual Basic .NET and Visual C# .NET code that runs in Microsoft Word 2003 and Microsoft Excel 2003 documents. Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005 adds great new functionality, such as hosting Word and Excel as full-fledged designers within the Visual Studio development environment, the ability to program directly against data and view objects, and the ability to create and use custom controls within the task pane. 

As beta participants, we will provide you with a beta version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, which contains the Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005 beta. Our goal throughout the beta is to obtain the best possible feedback from our customers. It is critical to our success that we listen to you and incorporate your feedback into this exciting new version of Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005. During this time, we will be conducting web chats and periodically posting labs for participants to try out.

Availability of bits for Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005

The Microsoft Visual Studio team announced Beta 1 on June 29, 2004. You can now acquire a beta kit from Microsoft, paying only for shipping and handling. Access this site (https://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/get/default.aspx#vs2005) and click on the Visual Studio 2005 Beta link. You can then read instructions on how to order the beta. (If the link is not yet live, check back in a couple of days.) Once you have installed the beta, please read the readme for late breaking changes. Please note that you must have Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 in order to use the Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005 Beta. MSDN Subscribers can download both Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 from https://www.msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/downloads/. You must download the Visual Studio 2005 Beta full version in order to obtain the Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005 beta.

Note that Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005 Beta is not included any of the Visual Studio Express versions.

Before you continue, it is important to understand that the beta release of any product will not display the stability of a shipped Microsoft product. You may encounter problems with Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005, which could possibly result in a loss or destruction of data. This release is not appropriate for production use, and we suggest that you back up your existing data before you install and run this software.

Contact Us

Please post any questions you may have on our public newsgroup, microsoft.public.vsnet.vstools.office, and submit bugs and suggestions on the MSDN Product Feedback Center - https://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/. You can also read Visual Studio Tools for Office–related blogs at these two locations: Visual Studio Tools for Office User Education Team’s Blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/vsto2 (that's us!) and OfficeZealot.com’s blog site: https://blogs.officezealot.com/chris/.

-- Paul Cornell

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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 30, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 30, 2004
    Aren't the OfficeZealot blogz located over @ http://www.officezealot.com/BlogHome.aspx or did they take over gotdotnet? ;-)
  • Anonymous
    June 30, 2004
    correction: blogs.officezealot.com ... what can i say it's early in the morning ;)
  • Anonymous
    June 30, 2004
    @ Sean: What about "Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office 2003" ? ;-)

  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2004
    Thanks, Cyriel, for catching the incorrect URL. It has been changed to http://blogs.officezealot.com/chris/.
  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2004
    Thanks, Sean, for pointing out the issue with "Office 2005." The official name of the product is Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System, Version 2005. We sometimes shorten it to Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005. Some folks even shorten it to Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005, which is incorrect, because it gives folks the impression there is an Office 2005, which is also incorrect. Sorry for any confusion.
  • Anonymous
    July 03, 2004
    Es tiempo de betas: Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio Express Products, SQL Server 2005.
  • Anonymous
    July 11, 2004
    I need beta version of visual studio net
  • Anonymous
    July 12, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    July 14, 2004
    I have 2 concerns

    1. When I deploy my VSTO 2.0 applications to my customers' machines, do they need to have Office 2003 installed? I know VSTO 1.0 needs that.

    2. How about VSTO pricing? VSTO 1.0 is priced $499. Will VSTO 2.0 be much more expensive than that?

    Thanks.
  • Anonymous
    July 14, 2004
    Yes, customers need Office 2003 installed.

    It's too early at this time to discuss VSTO 2.0 pricing.
  • Anonymous
    July 14, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    July 14, 2004
    Good point, John. I should clarify further.

    End-user customers will need Office 2003, the .NET Framework 2.0, and the VSTO 2005 runtime installed.

    For server scenarios, the server will need at least the .NET Framework 2.0 and the VSTO 2005 runtime installed. Office 2003 is not required to support VSTO 2005 server scenarios.

    Hope this helps.
  • Anonymous
    July 14, 2004
    Sorry Paul if I keep bothering you as I'm still not quick clear about when I should have Office 2003 installed.

    Let me give you a typical example. As I'm concerned with Office 2003 intallation only so I ignore other sutff such as .NET Framework 2.0 and the VSTO 2005 runtime.

    You can say I'm the VSTO solution developer. I develop 2 VSTO based applications.

    The first one is a Windows form application, used in a deskstop environment. Say, its name is MyDesktop. I need to deploy MyDesktop to 2 customers: Alice and Bob. For Alice and Bob, to enable them to run MyDesktop, do their desktops need to have Office 2003 installed?

    The second one is a Web form application, used in a web server environment. Say, its name is MyWebServer. I need to deploy MyWebServer to 2 customers: Cindy and Danny. For Cindy and Danny, to enable them to run MyWebServer, do their web servers need to have Office 2003 installed?

  • Anonymous
    July 15, 2004
    I'm confused about your scenario. It appears from the way that you've worded how you're developing your applications, that you're not calling Office-based solutions. How do you want your Windows Form and Web Form applications to interact with a VSTO solution specifically?

    To recap my earlier statements:

    Naturally, VSTO-based solutions need Office 2003 installed if an end user is interacting with a VSTO-based Office solution on their computer.

    If you are in a VSTO server scenario, Office 2003 does not need to be installed.

    In either of these two previous cases, whether you have an end-users computer or a server computer, at a minimum the VSTO 2005 runtime and .NET Framework 2.0 must be installed to interact with a VSTO-based solution.

    Hope this helps.