Proof Of Concept Outlook Add-In

Three months ago, I got a task to make Proof Of Concept Outlook Add-In for an internal project in my company.

As I have some experience in using Office platform, specifically Outlook, I thought that I shouldn't have any problem in programming against Office platform.

Microsoft has put a lot of effors in making Office easy to learn and use as a programming platform and in some extent they manage to make it so. But, if you need to do something in a way which is not meant by API creators you'll get a lot of problems, so I had them a lot.

To make a long story short, these were my targets at the begining:

1. Make an add-in for Outlook (versions 2003 and 2007). Support look & feel of Outlook. List all items in a folder structure. Support preview of items for common types and in an addition, changing and saving items where it is possible.
2. Use Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) to create add-in. Alternative is to use COM development targeting Office platform (no indentified advantages over VSTO).

In the following posts, I will try to describe all problems that I had and what I did to solve them in a single aim: not to forget them.