I am writing a custom C# plugin (Add-In) and that need to be distrubued to another machine

[autodesklicenseIDC]

Hi - I am writing a C# custom plugin (Add-In) and need to be distributed to different machine. I see that I can manually add the plugin permission in (add-in manager) but, is there any way to programmatically give permission for the plugin to load automatically on Inventor app launch? 

[pball]

I doubt there is any way to do that automatically due to security reasons. If you can digitally sign your addin it is possible to get an addin loaded without having to manually allow it. Unfortunately self signed addins aren't good enough without extra effort.

Here is at least one thread on the topic.
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ilogic-and-vb-net-forum/digitally-signing-an-inventor-addin/...

[autodesklicenseIDC]

I have digitally signed the custom add-in dll. But, when I launch the app and in Tools -> Add-In manager shows blocked. Not sure why my custom plugin is blocked even though signed with trusted key. My expectation is custom dll will auto load on app launch and this is what I needed. Is there any way to achieve this via registry entry or something?

[pball]

Did you self sign the addin? If so it likely will not auto load unless you can get your self signed cert properly installed on the PC. I've personally not managed to figure this out so I just deal with having to enable the addin with new installs.

[JelteDeJong]

Option 1: Self sign with a certificate then your certificate also needs to be in the "Trusted Publishers" list on the users machine.

Option 2: Add your addin files (dll's and *.addin file) to the AddInLoadRules.xml. This file is not always writable if the user already saved some changes.

More info complete info in this post:

https://adndevblog.typepad.com/manufacturing/2016/04/add-in-security-in-inventor-2017.html