General information about how to use VBScript with Outlook custom forms (290661)

INTRODUCTION

This article contains general information about how to use Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) together with custom forms in Microsoft Office Outlook and with Microsoft Outlook.

Note VBScript has not significantly changed since the year 2000. Therefore, the version information that follows is more important for earlier versions of Outlook. Generally, VBScript versioning does not affect custom form solutions that are developed for Outlook 2000 and for later versions of Outlook. However, if you will be using a custom form in Outlook 98 or in Outlook 97, you should carefully test the custom form to make sure that it is compatible with earlier versions of VBScript.

MORE INFORMATION

Overview

VBScript is the programming language that you use to create custom form solutions for Outlook. Microsoft Internet Explorer also uses VBScript to create custom HTML page solutions.

VBScript is generally a subset of the commands that are available in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications. Visual Basic for Applications is a subset of the commands that are available in Microsoft Visual Basic.

In Outlook, VBScript is stored in Outlook forms or items. For example, VBScript is stored in a contact, in a mail message, or in an appointment. There is no global repository for VBScript code in Outlook. This behavior differs from Visual Basic for Applications code.

VBScript offers the following advantages when you use it in an enterprise solution or in a distributed solution:

Because VBScript code is interpreted and not compiled, Outlook items are relatively small as measured by bytes. This means that Outlook items consume less corporate resources and Exchange Server resources and also give you faster performance.
VBScript is designed to be a secure programming environment. It lacks various commands that can be potentially damaging if they are used in a malicious manner.

VBScript version history

Note This list is incomplete. However, this list highlights the major versions of VBScript relative to the major versions of Microsoft Office and Outlook.

Version	Notes
1.0	Included with Outlook versions 8.0 through 8.04
2.0	No longer available for download. Included with Internet Information Server (IIS) 2.0. Download file: Scr20en.exe. Added features included arrays, the For Each...Next structure, and GetObject/CreateObject.
3.0	Installed by Internet Explorer 4.0
3.1	Installed by Internet Explorer 4.1. Download file: Scr31en.exe
3.1a	No longer available for download. Download file: scr31en.exe. Fixed a problem with GetObject. In versions 3.0 through 3.1, GetObject would always return a new instance of a registered component or application.
4.0	Installed by Visual Studio 6.0. Added features are specific to use with Visual Studio. Not available for download.
5.0	Installed by Internet Explorer 5.0, which is installed by Microsoft Outlook 2000.
5.1	Installed by Internet Explorer 5.0 as part of Office XP.
5.5	Available for download.

How to obtain VBScript updates and documentation

To obtain up-to-date information and documentation for Microsoft scripting languages, visit the following Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Web site:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/scriptinga.asp

Deploying VBScript with an Outlook solution

If you download the scripting files from the Scripting Web site, the complete set of scripting dynamic-link libraries (Vbscript.dll, Jscript.dll, and Scrrun.dll) are installed on your computer. Scrrun.dll provides additional objects for use with VBScript, such as the FileSystemObject for reading and writing text files in a file system. If you use any functionality that is provided by Scrrun.dll, you must make sure that this dynamic link library is installed on all computers that will use your solution.