We have a VeriSign certificate that allows us to sign our Excel AddIn. We
were using Excel 2000 for development, but discovered some incompatibilities
with Excel 97 users (whom we need to support), so we are now doing
development using Excel 97. It is obvious how to sign the AddIn from within
Excel 2000, but it is not at all clear how to do this from Excel 97. Is it
possible to sign Excel 97 AddIns?

One option is to reinstall Excel 2000 and try to sign the Excel 97 AddIn
using Excel 2000. There are two things that concern us about this approach:

1) installing Excel 2000 might cause Excel 97 to behave strangely,
especially if they share some DLLs; and
2) signing the Excel 97 AddIn might introduce some Excel 2000 features,
which might make the AddIn incompatible with our Excel 97 users.

Any recommendations?

Jon

Jon,

The following comments are my opinions/beliefs, others will have
different views...

I have XL97 and XL2002 installed on the same home machine and

1. The two applications do not interfere with each other as long as
you do not run them at the same time. However, certain steps
must be followed for a successful dual installation.
2. It is best to develop entirely within one application version and then
test in the other. Do not write and use code from both versions.
3. Write code in the latest version, but only use the older version of help.
4. The XL 97 help file opens faster and is much easier to use.
Put a toolbar or menu button someplace that activates the older
version of help.
5. Doing development in the older version does not guarantee that code
will work in later versions.

If you want a list of suggestions to follow when installing multiple
office versions, then post back.

Regards,
Jim Cone
San Francisco, CA

"jon" wrote in message
...
We have a VeriSign certificate that allows us to sign our Excel AddIn. We
were using Excel 2000 for development, but discovered some incompatibilities
with Excel 97 users (whom we need to support), so we are now doing
development using Excel 97. It is obvious how to sign the AddIn from within
Excel 2000, but it is not at all clear how to do this from Excel 97. Is it
possible to sign Excel 97 AddIns?

One option is to reinstall Excel 2000 and try to sign the Excel 97 AddIn
using Excel 2000. There are two things that concern us about this approach:

1) installing Excel 2000 might cause Excel 97 to behave strangely,
especially if they share some DLLs; and
2) signing the Excel 97 AddIn might introduce some Excel 2000 features,
which might make the AddIn incompatible with our Excel 97 users.

Any recommendations?

Jon