title: Beginning VSTO Development
body: <p>I'm quite confused with what are the necessary tools for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Studio_Tools_for_Office" rel="noreferrer">VSTO</a> develpment. Specifically I want to manipulate Excel 2003/2007 documents programmatically. I did quite a lot of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic_for_Applications" rel="noreferrer">VBA</a> before, if you want to relate any answer to that.</p>
  
  <p>Few questions I have about VSTO:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Can I use Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition C#/C++ for this?</li>
  <li>Do I need to have .NET framework installed?</li>
  <li>Does the resulting VSTO program need to have a copy of Office installed in the same system to run?</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Direct links to the relevant tools/plugins/IDE will be appreciated.</p>
  
  <p>Note: I'm totally new to VSTO and .NET but an Office power user. I have experience with COM programming.</p>