Microsoft KB Archive/291169

= OL2002: General Information About CDO 1.21s =

Article ID: 291169

Article Last Modified on 8/30/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Outlook 2002 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q291169





SUMMARY
This article provides an overview of Collaborative Data Objects (CDO) and explains why CDO is included with Microsoft Office.



MORE INFORMATION
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 Server 5.5, Microsoft Exchange 2000, and Outlook. This data can be in Exchange Server mailboxes and public folders, or in Outlook personal folder (.pst) files.

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

Do You Need to Install CDO?
By default, Outlook and Office XP 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 who requires messaging functionality, you do not need to install CDO. Office programs, including Outlook, do not use CDO. 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 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 Office or Outlook, the solution does not function. Because of this, many solutions that require CDO install it on your computer.

Developer Information
CDO 1.21s provides the same functionality as the CDO 1.21 object library, but has been updated to include the same e-mail security features that are included with the Outlook 2002 object model. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

295302 OL2002: Summary of CDO 1.21s E-mail Security Features

For additional developer-related information about CDO, see the following Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Web site:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms527038.aspx

