Deployment Manifests for Office Solutions (2003 System)

A deployment manifest is an XML file that describes the deployment settings of a Visual Studio Tools for Office solution and identifies the current application version to deploy.

Visual Studio Tools for Office uses a subset of the deployment manifest schema defined for ClickOnce. Only the elements and attributes listed in this table are supported for Visual Studio Tools for Office solutions. Any elements and attributes that are part of the ClickOnce schema but are not listed here are ignored, with no error raised.

Visual Studio Tools for Office deployment manifests have the following elements and attributes.

Remarks

The deployment manifest file identifies the current version of a solution. It references the application manifest, which describes the solution and all of the files contained within the current version. When you make a new version of a solution available, you must update the deployment manifest to refer to the new application manifest. When the solution runs, the runtime detects that the deployment manifest has a new version. The new application manifest specified in the deployment manifest is downloaded to replace the older one.

The MSBuild task GenerateDeployManifest generates the deployment manifest in the output folder. This task is invoked by the Publish Wizard, and also when you build a Visual Studio Tools for Office project from the command line and specify a Publish target. For more information, see GenerateDeploymentManifest Task.

Application and deployment manifests in Visual Studio Tools for Office solutions are not signed, as ClickOnce manifests are. The manifests cannot be validated before they are used.

Some of the fields in application and deployment manifests that are generated by the publish tools are not used in Visual Studio Tools for Office solutions, including some fields that identify properties of the assembly such as size and version.

File Name Syntax

The name of a deployment manifest file must end with the .application extension.

Example

The following code example illustrates a deployment manifest for a Visual Studio Tools for Office solution.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<asmv1:assembly xsi:schemaLocation=
    "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1 assembly.adaptive.xsd"
    manifestVersion="1.0" 
    xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2" 
    xmlns:asmv1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" 
    xmlns:asmv2="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2" 
    xmlns:xrml="http://www.xrml.org/schema/2001/11/xrml2core" 
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

    <assemblyIdentity name="ExcelApplication1.application"
        version="1.0.0.1" publicKeyToken="0000000000000000"
        language="neutral" processorArchitecture="msil" 
        xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" />
    <description asmv2:publisher="MS .NET" 
        asmv2:product="ExcelApplication1" 
        xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">Deployment 
        manifest description here.</description>
    <deployment install="false" />
    <dependency>
        <dependentAssembly 
            codebase="ExcelApplication1_1.0.0.1\
            ExcelApplication1.manifest" size="2518"
            hash="0DE6E54FDCF3334A23D627402EF65668CBFB8587"
            hashalg="SHA1">
            <assemblyIdentity name="ExcelApplication1.manifest" 
                version="1.0.0.1" />
            <hash>
                <dsig:Transforms>
                    <dsig:Transform Algorithm=
                    "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:HashTransforms.Identity"
                />
                </dsig:Transforms>
                <dsig:DigestMethod
                    Algorithm=
                        "http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#sha1" />
                <dsig:DigestValue>
                    qws6Ku5WQeMv12bE1W5deGkSHcY=
                </dsig:DigestValue>
            </hash>
        </dependentAssembly>
    </dependency>
</asmv1:assembly>

See Also

Tasks

How to: Change the Location of Document-Level Customizations (2003 System)

Concepts

Deploying Document-Level Customizations (2003 System)

Application and Deployment Manifests in Office Solutions