How Office Installs XML Expansion Packs [Office 2003 SDK Documentation]

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After Microsoft Office 2003 validates the security of a new XML expansion pack, the XML expansion pack is installed on the user's computer. This results in the following two actions:

  • The files are downloaded to the user's computer.
  • The Schema Library registry entries are set up on the user's computer.

Note  For more information about security for XML expansion packs, see Security Checks for XML Expansion Packs.

File installations

For each file referenced by the XML expansion pack, Office performs the following procedure to determine where the file should be installed on the user's computer.

Note  The default root directory for installation of the XML expansion pack is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Schemas\namespace\solution ID.

Registry setup

To properly set up the XML expansion pack on the user's computer, Office must also set up the Schema Library registry subkey to link the XML namespace used by the XML expansion pack to each of the associated files.

The Schema Library subkey is located in the registry under \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Schema Library\ and has the following structure:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Schema Library\namespace\namespace index\Alias\Files\Solutions\solution index\solution ID\Alias\Files

namespace  The XML namespace associated with the XML expansion pack.

namespace index  A unique index maintained by Office to distinguish this namespace. This key contains entries that tell Office where the XML expansion pack manifest file is located and details on how and when to perform the auto-update procedure.

Alias  Contains key entries for the XML schema's "friendly name" that is exposed within the host application.

Files  Contains a key for the XML schema used by this XML expansion pack. Under this key, key entries contain the schema file location, as well as information used for updating.

Solutions  Contains keys for each known XML expansion pack file grouping (using the XML expansion pack manifest solution element). The key name is the output namespace for Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLTs), and the key name for smart documents is http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/smartdocuments/2003.

solution index  A unique index maintained by Office to distinguish this solution.

solution ID  A unique identifier for this XML expansion pack specified by the <solutionID> tag in the XML expansion pack manifest file.

Alias  Contains key entries for a friendly name for the XML expansion pack that is exposed in the host application.

Files  Contains a key for every file included in this XML expansion pack. Under this key, key entries contain the file locations and file types, as well as information used for updating.

Note  The reason for the additional indexes at both the namespace and solution levels is to prevent possible conflicts caused by a lack of case sensitivity for registry keys.