FYI: In Outlook 2010 Exchange Client Extensions Are Gone…

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On the Outlook team blog it was announced recently that Exchange Client Extensions (ECEs) will not work with Outlook 2010.  This shouldn’t come as a big surprise, they haven’t been a primary extensibility model for Outlook since Outlook 97-98 days.  However, many Outlook developers have continued to maintain their ECEs and Microsoft supports them to work on Outlook versions up to Outlook 2007.  Here are the suggestions from the blog post about how to move forward…

“To redesign your solution, you should consider the following options:

  • Rewrite your ECE as a COM Add-in using native or managed code. Unlike ECEs, an add-in represents a strategic extensibility technology that is fully supported in Outlook 2010. Using an Outlook add-in, you can build Outlook form regions and extend the Office Fluent User Interface . For additional information, please visit the Outlook Developer Portal on MSDN.
  • Rewrite your ECE as a Windows service application using native code and MAPI. If you are writing a Windows service application, you must use MAPI to access Outlook items rather than the Outlook object model.”