Can an Outlook 2003 COM add-in written in VB6 be made to work with Outlook 2010?

Question

I have inherited an Outlook 2003 COM add-in written using VB6 (note: NOT VB.NET).

I need to upgrade this to work with Outlook 2010. Is it possible to create an add-in for Outlook 2010 using VB6, or do I need to re-implement everything?

Answer 1

2003 COM Addins will work mostly fine in Outlook 2010. Some relevant details:

• Practically all the old COM events will still work like a charm, however

• Interface modifications will no longer work as expected. The Outlook 2010 ribbon interface either ignores them or pushes them into a separate 'addins' tab.

• Your 2003 COM AddIn simply will not work in 64 bits Outlook. Not that many people use the 64bits Office suite, but still.

Answer 2

I haven't explicitly tested this, but Outlook 2010 still uses the COM addin model so the VB6 addin should still be fine. You may still need to make a few changes for the version change as normal, but no rewrite is needed.