Quick walkthrough on Re-enabling MS Office Add-ins

 - Mohankumar Deivasigamani

Hope my last two blog posts  helped you to know more on creating a MS Office add-in using .Net.

Create Ms Office add-ins

Adding custom ribbon menu

In some cases the Add-ins might be disabled. The following link will help to know the types of disables and the way how we can re-enable those.

 Re-enable an Add-in That Has Been Disabled

Moreover there are few things to be checked out while Ms Office add-ins are not loaded.

Check list to be followed while MS Office add-ins are not getting loaded

Step 1: Make sure LoadBehavior (DWORD) value is 3, refer load behaviour key in below registry path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\

YourApplication.Connect

Step 2: Check whether CodeBase is referred to your application Dynamic Link Library (dll)

Step 3: Make sure you specify mscoree.dll in you registry entry. At the same time check whether mscoree.dll has registered properly in your machine Global Assembly Cache (GAC).

Step 4: As the last step, download appropriate Primary Interop Aassemblies (PIA) and install in your machine.

Step 5: Finally, fusion log will help developers to fix dll level issues.

Fusion Logs – Identifying Source of Assembly Load Failures

Fusion logs help in identifying the source of failed assembly binds. Setting the following registry values will help to enable fusion logs:

Open regedit.exe and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Fusion

Add the following values:

•    DWORD ForceLog set value to 1
•    DWORD LogFailures set value to 1
•    DWORD LogResourceBinds set value to 1
•   String LogPath set value to C:\FusionLog\ - (Directory named C:\FusionLog should be created and the last \ is important while writing in the registry).

If there is a “Could not load assembly” exception or if your office add-ins failed to load, open C:\FusionLog in the windows explorer. Open the folder named Default and then the folder whose name matches the application in question. If MS Word failed to load the add-ins, open the folder named WINWORD.exe to find a detailed diagnostic report file.