Finding information on Add-In development for Microsoft Access is like getting all of your teeth pulled! Yes I've found the couple Managed Add-In Articles written... but could find next to nothing for Un-Managed Add-Ins. I did find one great article which is very old in creating basically an unmanaged .mda project... which I've followed and created a add-in. Now I would like an automated way to deploy this add-in.
I've seen it done from VBA with such tools as Rick Fisher's Find and Replace add-in tool... but can not find a way to do this programatically in Access. I have found lot's and lot's of articles on Excel Add-In's and even Excel Add-In Installation. One such method uses VBA like so:
Sub InstallAddIn()
Dim AI As Excel.AddIn
Set AI = Application.AddIns.Add(Filename:="C:\MyAddIn.xla")
AI.Installed = True
End Sub
Unfortunately Access does not use the same method. If anyone could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. AND if anyone knows of any books or references that goes more in-depth to developing Add-Ins for Microsoft Access that would be greatly appreciated as well as most of the picking seem slim.
This is just a bad idea. To be honest, I'm not sure where it's even located in the current version of Windows/Office. I have found Word and Excel at the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office, but I have Access installed and I don't see an Access folder there. At one point, Access add-ins were accessible through this registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Access\Menu Add-Ins
This worked for Office 2003 on Win Vista. But it changes every time Microsoft updates Office/Windows, so trying to do it programmatically would be moot because you would have to update and roll out a database change every time you updated Office or Windows.
If you target the main registry hive there is logic that will put the key in the correct location for you. For example, you never hard code Wow6432Node because that location is automatically managed by 64-bit windows when a 32-bit application tries to use the registry. Likewise, in modern C2R versions of office the registry location is in a really strange place. You don't have to worry about it. If you target the main key from Access, the key will end up in the correct location magically.
If you want to install per user I recommend using the following locations.
Put the file here:
Private Function GetAddinFileName() As String
GetAddinFileName = Environ$("AppData") & "\Microsoft\AddIns\" & CodeProject.Name
End Function
Use this registry location:
Private Function GetAddinRegPath() As String
GetAddinRegPath = "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\" & _
Application.Version & "\Access\Menu Add-Ins\"
End Function
