Edit

Registering Services and Service Providers in MapiSvc.inf

  • Article

Applies to: Outlook 2013 | Outlook 2016

Installing a new provider on a system requires updating the MapiSvc.inf file to point to the new provider. Standard properties set during configuration, which include the following, inform MAPI where to find the provider's dynamic-link library (.dll):

  • The PR_SERVICE_DLL_NAME is specified in the [Message Service] section.

  • The PR_PROVIDER_DLL_NAME is specified in the [Service Provider] section.

Note

The expectation is that you set the name of your provider's .dll (without the suffix "32"). MAPI then loads your provider by looking for it on the path.

Putting a Path in MapiSvc.inf

Most applications install under Program Files, requiring an update to the path variable to allow MAPI providers to work. With a few restrictions Microsoft Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 can accommodate full paths to MAPI providers.

When registering your provider in MapiSvc.inf, you could put the full path to the provider in the MAPI properties PR_SERVICE_DLL_NAME and PR_PROVIDER_DLL_NAME.

In either property, the full path must be without the suffix "32", because MAPI continues to append that to the filename before looking for your file. This means that if you register the path "c:\mypath\myprovider.dll", MAPI will attempt to load "c:\mypath\myprovider32.dll".

Because Outlook's MAPI was not originally designed to accommodate full paths, it accomplishes this insertion of the "32" suffix by looking for the first period in the string, which means that paths that contain other periods cannot work, so you cannot use paths such as "c:\my.path\myprovider.dll" or "c:\mypath\my.provider.dll".

Sometimes in a store provider you will generate entry identifiers using the WrapStoreEntryID function, which takes as a parameter the name of your provider.

Important

If you are using full paths in MapiSvc.inf, you must use the same path in any calls to WrapStoreEntryID.

Additionally, the path you use may be converted to and from Unicode using the code page provided by the GetACP function.

Caution

You will experience failure if you choose a path that contains characters that cannot survive such a roundtrip through the MultiByteToWideChar and WideCharToMultiByte functions.

For a demonstration of this functionality, the Wrapped PST sample on GitHub has been revised - the pertinent functionality is in MergeWithMapiSvc and GenerateProviderPath.