Application and Deployment Manifests in Office Solutions
An application manifest is an XML file that provides information that is used by a Visual Studio Tools for Office solution to locate and update its assemblies. An application manifest can be used with a deployment manifest, which is an XML file stored on the server that provides the information needed to locate the most current version of the application manifest and assemblies.
Manifest Structure for the 2007 Microsoft Office System
For the 2007 Microsoft Office system, all application manifests for both document-level and application-level projects are located in the ClickOnce cache. The deployment manifests are not copied to the client computer.
For information about the contents of application and deployment manifests for the 2007 Microsoft Office system projects, see Application Manifests for Office Solutions (2007 System) and Deployment Manifests for Office Solutions (2007 System).
Manifest Structure for Microsoft Office 2003
For document-level customizations, every Microsoft Office Word 2003 document and Microsoft Office Excel 2003 workbook has an application manifest embedded in the document or workbook.
For application-level add-ins, there is an external application manifest file that is located on the client computer. Deployment manifests are located with the deployed assemblies.
For information about the contents of application and deployment manifests for Microsoft Office 2003 projects, see Application Manifests for Office Solutions (2003 System) and Deployment Manifests for Office Solutions (2003 System).
Creating Application and Deployment Manifests
Application manifests are created automatically as part of the build process. Every time you build a document-level project, the application manifest is embedded in the document. For the other Microsoft Office 2003 and all 2007 Microsoft Office system projects, the application manifest is created and saved in the build output directory. Deployment manifests and updated application manifests are automatically generated when you use the Publish Wizard.
For more information about the Publish Wizard in Visual Studio Tools for Office solutions for Microsoft Office 2003, see How to: Deploy Solution Files Using the Publish Wizard (2003 System).
For more information about the Publish Wizard for the 2007 Microsoft Office system, see Publishing Office Solutions (2007 System).
For more information about how manifests work with Office solutions, see Deploying Office Solutions (2003 System) and Deploying Office Solutions (2007 System).
See Also
Concepts
Architecture of Document-Level Customizations
Architecture of Application-Level Add-Ins
Assemblies in Office Solutions Overview
Creating Office Solutions in Visual Studio
Reference
Application Manifests for Office Solutions (2003 System)
Deployment Manifests for Office Solutions (2003 System)
Application Manifests for Office Solutions (2007 System)
Deployment Manifests for Office Solutions (2007 System)