How to add MS Office add-in from inside a Thinapp 5 virtual application to a MS Office 2013 suite that is installed on a base image

Question

Hi,
We have the following solution:
VMware Horizon View 5.3.1
Non-persistent Linked-clone pool with delete VM after logoff
Windows 8.1 Update 1 Enterprise 64 bit
MS Office 2013 32-bit installed on image
Thinapps registered for each user from logonscript with thinreg.exe command. Thinapps is located on a network share
Native Windows roaming profiles with appdata/roaming, appdata/local without appdata/locallow(persona management does not support Windows 8.1 in View 5.3.1)
This is our issue:
We have a 3rd party application with a couple Thinapp entrypoints(exe files) and in the Thinapp package process we also installed Office addins. We tested that the Add-ins was opened inside Outlook, Word and Powerpoint before post installation scan.
The problem is that the add-ins is not added to Office 2013 before or after the Thinapp is started on a test client.
I have tried several changes in the package.ini and virtual filesystem attributes(no registry changes yet):
Package.ini:
ChildProcessEnvironmentExceptions=WINWORD.EXE;EXCEL.EXE;POWERPNT.EXE;OUTLOOK.EXE;
ChildProcessEnvironmentDefault=External
ChildProcessEnvironmentExceptions=excel.exe;outlook.exe;powerpnt.exe;winword.exe
ChildProcessEnvironmentDefault=Virtual
VirtualizeExternalOutOfProcessCOM=0
DirectoryIsolationMode=Merged
RegistryIsolationMode=Merged
I have also read that you could make entrypoints to the locally installed Office 2013, but I get errors on the build process. ref. link: http://edwinfriesen.nl/content/?p=105#comments
The best thing would be if the add-ins were added in the logon process together with thinreg.exe, but if that is not supported, the add-ins must be added to Office either in a custom Office shortcut/entry point or after starting the Thinapp virtual application.
Remember that the application needs to registered every times the user logon, because we use a non-persistent View pool.
I would really appreciate if somebody could tell me how to add Office add-ins from inside a Thinapp virtual application/package to a locally installed MS Office 2013 suite on a Windows "base" image?
We do not want to add the whole Office suite to the Thinapp virtual package and not add the add-ins trough GPO,SCCM etc.

Answer 1

What about the COM object parameters in package.ini ?
We can live with scripting in logon or changed logon scripts etc.
And you don't no need to lock in the project files.
From package.ini documentation:
ObjectTypes Parameter
The ObjectTypes parameter specifies a list of virtual COM object types that are visible to other applications in
the physical environment. You can use scripts, such as VBScripts, to call objects that start captured applications.
An object type is registered to only one native or virtual application at a time. If you install Office 2003 on the
native machine and want to use a virtual Office 2007 package, you must determine whether to have the virtual
or native application handle the object types.
If you want the virtual Office 2007 to handle the object types, you can leave the ObjectTypes setting in the
Package.ini file, build the package, and register it using the thinreg.exe utility. If you want the native Office
2003 to handle the object types, you must remove the ObjectTypes setting from the Package.ini file before
building and registering the package.
You cannot add random entries to the ObjectTypes parameter.
You can only remove entries that were generated by the capture process.
Example: Starting a Virtual Application When a COM Object is Created
If a script or a native application creates an Excel.Application COM object or other COM objects listed in the
ObjectTypes parameter, ThinApp starts the virtual package.
[Microsoft Office Excel 2007.exe]
ObjectTypes=Excel.Application;Excel.Application.12;Excel.Chart;
Excel.Macrosheet;Excel.Sheet; Excel.Workspace