Another Technique for Manual Install of Xbar

In the course of working with Xbar (which allows Infor CRM software to connect to Microsoft Outlook), I have come across various techniques for getting it to install or uninstall when it is refusing to do so in the normal way.  Recently, I have come across one more that I wished to share. In particular, this one was effective in getting Xbar to install on a computer on which is had never been installed before, but the automated install was failing for some reason.  (Regular readers will note this is similar to the previous method, but we are copying the whole folder instead of tricking the install into running.)

When Xbar installs, all the files are stored in the “C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Infor” folder.  It is possible to install Xbar by just copying this entire folder from a computer with a working Xbar.  Just copy it and paste it in the same place on the new user’s computer. If there are any slxotl32-[date].LOG files, it would be a good idea to delete them, just so you don’t get confused by another computer’s logs if need to look at those later.  Next you need to register the actual program .dll so Windows knows it is there.  Open the command line tool at type:

regsvr32 C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Infor\slxotl32.dll

This should pop up a window that the file has been registered.

Now open Outlook to see if Xbar is there.  In our test case, this was all that was needed.  In some cases, it might be necessary to manually activate this add-in in Outlook. If this is needed, open the File menu in Outlook and choose Options.  Click Add-ins, set the drop-down for Manage to COM Add-in, and click Go.