Automating the Installation of Outlook Forms for off-line users

My client has 200 or so remote off-line users who use Outlook to connect to their corporate Exchange server for mail. The PCs only connect long enough to retrieve and send mail, then they disconnect. I created several custom forms (many are reply only forms). I had to get the forms installed on the remote PCs in the personal forms registry without travelling to several states. I tried creating Favorites folders and synchronizing, then have the users copy the forms to the Personal Forms registry. I tried sending the Outlook templates and having the users publish the forms. These methods took too much time. Especially when many of the users have never used a computer before. I had to come up with a fully automated solution.

Here it is:

First: I send an email to a remote user that has an InstallShield self-extracting file attached. When double-clicked, the InstallShield self-extracting file "dumps" all of the Outlook Templates (.OFT), MS Word templates, Access databases, and a Visual Basic program into the directory "C:\common\Formsdata\" . (including the necessary files to run the VB program in the Windows system directory) (the Word templates and Access databases are used by the Outlook forms)Second: the InstallShield self-extracting file runs the Visual Basic program.The VB program looks for all .OFT files in the c:\common\formsdata directory and publishes each one in the Personal forms registry.

This is the VB Program:

Sub main()
Dim filename As String
Dim Temp As String
Dim endpos As Integer
Dim mylength As Integer
Set myOlApp = GetObject("", "Outlook.Application")
' retrieve Outlook Templates
filename = Dir$("c:\common\formsdata\*.oft", vbNormal)
Do Until filename = ""
mylength = Len(filename)
' strip off the extension from the filename. This will be the
name of the form.
endpos = InStr(1, filename, ".oft", 1)
strTemp = Trim(Mid(filename, 1, endpos - 1))
' publish all Outlook forms into the Personal Registry
Set myItem =
myOlApp.createitemfromtemplate("C:\common\formsdata\" & filename)
Set myform = myItem.formdescription
myform.Name = strTemp
myform.PublishForm olPersonalRegistry
filename = Dir$
Loop
End Sub

After the user receives the e-mail, all they have to do is double-click on the attachment and everything is installed.

MARK G. WISNIEWSKI
615-356-2686 Extension 16
mark.wisniewski@worldnet.att.net