OL98: General Information About CDO (274357)

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CDO is an object model that developers can use in their custom solutions. The CDO object model allows a custom solution to do the following:

• Programmatically generate and send messages.
• Access address book information.
• Access other information that is stored in Microsoft Exchange and Outlook. This data could be in Exchange Server mailboxes and public folders, or in Outlook personal folder file (.pst).

There are many versions and variations of CDO, and this article applies to CDO version 1.21, which is the version that is designed specifically for use on typical client or end-user computers.

Do You Need to Install CDO?

By default, Outlook and Microsoft Office 2000 do not install the CDO object model. It is an optional component that is not included in the typical setup procedure. If you do not have any programs installed on your computer that require CDO, and you are not a programmer that requires messaging functionality, you do not need to install CDO. Microsoft Office programs, including Outlook, do not use CDO. Microsoft Office includes CDO only for custom solutions. CDO is more commonly used in a corporate environment, and typically is not required on stand-alone computers.

If you have CDO installed on your computer, it may not have been installed by Microsoft Office or Outlook. If you install a custom solution, it can install CDO on your computer. If a solution developer uses CDO but does not install it, and you have not installed CDO with Microsoft Office or Outlook, then the solution does not function. Because of this, many solutions that require CDO install it on your computer.