Hi!
I use Word and Excel automation for generating reports.
I don't like the late binding approach(first because I can't find out a way to address Word Document Property Constants like WdLineStyle.wdLineStyleSingle), as I cannot check if everything will work, without running the application myself on PCs with the different Office versions. So I read, that a good idea would be to compile the application with the oldest Interop library necessary, so in my case this would be Office 2003. I downloaded the Interop library for Word, and tried to install it, so I can add the reference to the project. But the installer says, I need to install Word 2003 before I can install this Interop.
So, now I develop the application with Interop for Office 15, and I cannot be sure that I already have not used some properties, that older versions of Word did not include. I would like to use an older Interop, so I am forced to use only features avaliable in the older office versions.

Is there a way, to use early binding by installing the interop on the clients machine during my application installation and then look for the location of it in registry? Or can I assume that the Interop library will be installed to a certain directory.

As I must support three versions of Office, I would make three different installers each for every Office version and then I would send the according version to the client.