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Microsoft VSTO extension

I am looking for an extension of the Microsoft VSTO framework. I am still in the learning stages so I could be wrong, but I am finding that the capabilities that it has are very minimal. Is there an extension of this framework that is easier to work with? I'm currently looking into NetOffice, but it seems like it's more for external applications using office than for add-ins.
An example of how I think it is very minimal. I wish to get the email address (stack#overflow.com) for the recipients when the user clicks send in Outlook. But the only thing available is the exchange address (/O=ORGANIZATION_NAME /OU=EXCHANGE_GROUP /CN=RECIPIENTS /CN=USER_NAME). This function is available here, but this seems like it should just be available in the VSTO framework.
Thanks,
McAngus

VSTO does not expose anything the Outlook Object Model does not expose. Use AddressEntry.GetExchangeUser().PrimarySmntpAddress.

c# new mail from outlook with attachment

This has been asked before in one way or another, but i need some clarity on an issue I am having.
essentially, my client wants his app (wpf, written in VS2010) to be able to create new messages in his outlook (not send them, but just popup with the new mail message with certain fields filled in - he will type up the rest of the body and then send)
So to date I have just been going the route of using the mailto:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(string.Concat(#"mailto:" , toAddress , "?subject=" , subject));
easy peasy.
Now he wants attachments to be included. Doing some reasearch I see that there once was an &Attach tag I could add, but it doesn't work for me. further research revealed that its been killed off since office 2007 (I have 2013 installed on my box, client has all different types) so I cant use this method.
Further reasearch suggests that i go the COM automation route. there are nice tuts online like this one on MSDN
seems simple enough but I get stuck at this point
Step1. Create a Console application and reference the Outlook Primary Interop Assembly (PIA). To reference the Outlook PIA, right-click the project file and click the "Add Reference..." button. In the Add Reference dialog, navigate to the .NET tab, find Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook 12.0.0.0 and click OK.
Now I have a bunch of different ones (v11 - v15)
I guess because of different versions of office I have had.
Now my question is
Which version should I pick
What happens when I publish (clickonce) and deploy to my client given that their machines all have different versions of office.
Will the highest version accommodate them all?
Can I pick one to suite them all
(note: It has to happen through outlook so i cant use the normal .net mail method - that would have been great if i could)
Thanks

My recommendation is not to use PIAs, use NetOffice instead, as it provides a very nice abstraction and will work with any Office version (https://netoffice.codeplex.com/). Will also work nice with Clickonce distribution.

Using windows explorer for other file storage via .net

I've seen software products that interface with windows explorer for sharing cloud drives, one was for using gmail as a drive. Is there any documentation on what libraries etcetera are used to accomplish this task?
I'm not looking to use Gmail (specifically)
I'm more concerned about
how to access the windows-explorer interface for showing items that
are not on a real disk.

You'll need to create a Windows shell extension.
This article looks promising - although quite old.
However, as stated in that article, you are discouraged to build a shell extension with managed code.

You should download open-source software such as gDisk to see how they are doing it. Or you can see how it is done in Firefox using Gspace. Here are some general guidelines for developing such applications:
You need some way to distinguish files from email (labels, subject line, etc).
You need an interface to login to the GMail website and cache those credentials.
You need an interface to send an email to yourself.
Finally, you need a way to access those "files".

Creating Outlook Email Draft via C# Application

I am in the estimating phase of a project, and one requirement is that my application will create draft emails (with attachments) in MS-Outlook, which the user can then review and send. The app is written in WPF.
The clients will have either Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007. The files that need to be attached will already exist on the file system when the drafts are generated.
I have done some initial research, but would like to get some opinions from people who have first-hand experience.
Questions:
What tool would you use to
accomplish this?
Will there need to be separate code for Outlook 2003 vs. 2007?
In general, using whatever tools are recommended, is this a relatively straightforward problem to solve?
Thanks for any insight.

a c# wpf application should be able to do the job just fine, you just need to add the outlook libraries in your references and you can work with outlook directly from your WPF app.
I only write for 2003, but I do know that 2003 and 2007 use different libraries. There's probably a clever way check what version of outlook is being and use the methods from the correct library, but it will take some work to figure out.
It's relatively straight forward except for the security prompt you'll get if you send the email. But I suppose if they are going to have them review it first, you should be able to generate the email, open it in an outlook window for them to review, and have them click the send button.

Would you be able to use WebDAV and then simply create the message and drop it in the users' Drafts folder?
Basically, you'll end up using something like this product (or you can roll your own) to create and save the message. You might be able to find an open source solution.

I think there are a couple tools you could use here:
Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO)
total control over Outlook
version of Outlook may matter
Assuming you have Exchange, you could use WebDAV, Exchange's XML methodology
version of Outlook wouldn't matter here
Use the built in mailto: functionality
lots of results for using this to include attachments - Google Results
would work for email apps other than Outlook
this probably would be quickest solution, but the least control over the output

An Outlook Add-in is probably a good way to go for this application. The tool set you need is Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO). With the possible exception of the WPF requirement, this is pretty straightforward.
Be aware that the API's and the VSTO tools evolved between 2003 and 2007. You can potentially have a single code base but you will need to write for the least common denominator, 2003.
2003 and 2007 also have different Primary Interop Assemblies, the components that bridge the gap between your .NET code and the native code COM interfaces that Outlook has. This can be a challenge when it comes to building and installer for your add-in. If you want your add-in to install the PIA's, you need to detect the version of Office and install the appropriate version, or, more commonly, just build two different installers.
I've never tried to do WPF inside Outlook 2003. There may be some issues with it but I don't know.

Netmeeting in C#

I want to get some of the netmeeting functionality in my C# program. Mainly I want to be able to call a H.323 teleconference system by IP. Google turns up mention of Netmeeting SDK but no download link and it seems that Microsoft has discontinued Netmeeting altogether.
Can someone give a suggestion or a pointer on the best way to go about doing something like this?

Netmeeting has been retired and replaced by Live Meeting, Office Communicator, and the Office Communications Server. Which is a Very Good Thing, as they by are orders of magnitude more advanced and modern communication tools than Netmeeting (not to mention just plain more reliable). They are also easily interoperable with .NET. The Live Meeting Service Developer Portal is a good place to start.