I have office 2007. I am developing a vb.net 2008 project to work with
office 2003 excel which will be on the users machine. Here is the question
-- after reading tons of stuff about this.

in my list of references in vb.net I have:

Microsoft.interop version 11 and 12 (are these the PIA's)
microsoft. office tools.excel version 8 and 9
Microsoft object lib 12 and 5

I am developing on the 2007 office machine for a project that will use
office 2003 excel. I am only creating spreadsheets, reading and writing to
spread sheets.

I have read alot of conflicting info so here are my questions.

1. if I use late binding, what if any of the above references will I need
and do I have to use late binding for these tasks. I read that you could not
do this on a 2007 office machine for 2003 office. And I read that you could
with late binding and with 2007 PIA's

2. if I use early binding can I use any of the references above to allow me
to develop in office 2007 excel of the development machine for the 2003
office machines to do the tasks that I layed out above. If yes what do I
use and which versions.

does one need to use VSTO for this? if not what references are needed. I
get the sense that not all of these reference types refer to VSTO. There
seem to be various ways to work with Excel. I want to use the most up to date
method but not if it is complicated beyond belief for my situation

I do not develop office projects so this is totally new for me.

--
smHaig