Visual Studio Add-in creation tips : Cannot see the created add-in under Add-in manager in Visual Studio

Problem :

I made an add-in in visual studio and it is visible in any instance of visual studio under Add-in Manager. but if i want to work with the project having a copy of it to another machine, what should be done to make it visible under the add-in manager.

basically, i want be able to let VS of any of my PCs to detect the add-ins that i have created in it or copied from some other machine.

Solution : 

You need to register the assembly as add-in for VS using an .AddIn file in some of the well-known locations.

The .AddIn file for add-ins that you create are typically in the folder C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Visual Studio <version>\AddIns.

Inside the .AddIn file there is a <Assembly> tag whose value you need to adjust if needed to point to the assembly path. (Open the AddIn file in a text editor)

Note the highlighted line in the above image. The location that mentioned within the Assembly tag should point to the .dll file of the addIn that you have created. Then the next time you open Visual Studio, your addIn will be visible.

Hope it was a useful tip to you.