Mass Deploy Outlook Plug-in

Question

I am developing a VSTO plug-in for Outlook so far so good. What is worrying me is how to deploy updated versions of the plug-in.

Since we have some policies I can only deploy manually on the PCs I do not wish to have to visit each PC on each update. So I was wondering if I can somehow put this plug-in in a shared drive and somehow deploy the new files next time outlook is opened.

Any ideas ? Any other solution?

Answer 1

I'm not quite sure on the exact policies which let you deploy the the updated versions only manually, but have you already looked into ClickOnce deployment? You would be able to update all addins centrally:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/1666d2b0-a4d0-41e8-ad86-5eab3542de1e/deploying-office-solutions-to-end-user-computers

As far as I know ClickOnce can also be used from a network share, but I've never tested this by myself:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/71baz9ah.aspx