How to: Install Visual Studio Tools for Office to Develop for the 2007 Microsoft Office System

To install Visual Studio Tools for Office for developing solutions for the 2007 Microsoft Office system, you can install the following in any order: .NET Framework 3.5, a supported version of Microsoft Office, and the primary interop assemblies. 

Visual Studio Tools for Office does not support installing Microsoft Office 2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system (or different versions of the same application, such as Word 2003 and Word 2007) side-by-side on the development computer. To develop solutions for different versions of Microsoft Office, use a different development computer for each version of Microsoft Office.

Prerequisites to Develop for the 2007 Microsoft Office System

The development computer must have the following components before you can develop solutions for the 2007 Microsoft Office system by using Visual Studio Tools for Office:

  • .NET Framework 3.5. The .NET Framework 3.5 is required to support ClickOnce deployment and other features in Visual Studio Tools for the Office system 3.0.

  • A supported version of Microsoft Office installed locally on the development computer. The following table lists the versions of Microsoft Office that support each project type.

    All projects for the 2007 Microsoft Office system

    All suite editions of the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

    Excel 2007.

    InfoPath 2007.

    Outlook 2007.

    PowerPoint 2007.

    Project 2007.

    Visio 2007.

    Word 2007.

    SharePoint Server 2007.

  • The primary interop assemblies for the edition of Microsoft Office that you have installed. The primary interop assemblies must be installed in the global assembly cache (GAC) to run and debug your Visual Studio Tools for Office solution.

    If the .NET Framework 3.5 or later is installed before you install Microsoft Office, you can install the primary interop assemblies into the global assembly cache by choosing a Complete installation of Microsoft Office. Otherwise, you must install the primary interop assemblies separately. For more information, see How to: Install Office Primary Interop Assemblies and Office Primary Interop Assemblies.

    Note

    Visual Studio Tools for Office installs private copies of the primary interop assemblies outside of the global assembly cache. These copies of the assemblies are used for building projects. However, the primary interop assemblies must also be installed and registered in the global assembly cache to perform most development tasks, such as running or debugging projects. For more information, see Office Primary Interop Assemblies.

  • Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) must be installed as part of Microsoft Office.

Installation Steps to Develop for the 2007 Microsoft Office System

To install Visual Studio Tools for Office on the development computer for the 2007 Microsoft Office system

  1. Install the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 or later. The .NET Framework is available from the Microsoft Download Center.

  2. Install a version of 2007 Microsoft Office system, including the primary interop assemblies.

  3. Install a version of Visual Studio that includes Visual Studio Tools for Office. For more information, see Installing Visual Studio Tools for Office.

    If you have an English version of Visual Studio but use non-English settings for Windows, you can install the Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system (version 3.0) Language Package to see Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime messages in the same language as Windows. Non-English versions of Visual Studio Tools for Office automatically install the language pack. The language pack is available from the Microsoft Download Center.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Install the Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime

How to: Install Office Primary Interop Assemblies

Concepts

What's New in Visual Studio Tools for Office

How to: Install Visual Studio Tools for Office to Develop for Microsoft Office 2003

How to: Install Visual Studio Tools for Office to Develop for SharePoint Workflow Project Templates

Other Resources

Getting Started (Visual Studio Tools for Office)