Windows Add-in is reverting to using Internet Explorer instead of Edge Chromium (WebView2)

Background

Riva Insight uses an embedded web browser control to show content within the sidepanel. New installs of Microsoft Office have WebView2 (Edge Chormium) support for displaying embedded web content.

Older installs of Microsoft Office 365 Version 2101 or higher that pre-date WebView2 (Edge Chromium) would have had support added through regular Office/Windows updates. When Riva Insight detects that Office supports WebView2, it will use the embedded WebView2 (Edge Browser). When it cannot be found, Riva Insight will revert to using Internet Explorer as the embedded browser.

Issue

In some cases, Microsoft Office may still be missing the files required to support WebView2, resulting in Riva Insight using Internet Explorer as the embedded browser instead of Edge Chromium. You can check if Insight is using Internet Explorer by:

1. Checking the Insight "About" page from the Windows Add-in.  In thr "Client Info" section, if you see, if you see the text "rv:11.0" for "User Agent", then WebView2 was not able to load and Internet Explorer is used.
2. Checking the most recent Windows Add-in client log under %localappdata%\Riva Insight\Logs for an error indicating "IsWebView2Installed" is false or encountered an error:
   • IsWebView2Installed, Unexpected error.
System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'WebView2Loader.dll': The specified module could not be found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E)

Resolution

1. Ensure the preqequisites and updates are in place:
   1. Check that you are using a supported version of Windows and Office.  The following are not supported:
      1. Non-subscription Office 2013 to Office 2019
      2. Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 version < 1903
      3. Microsoft 365 version < 16.0.13530.20424
   2. Ensure that the WebView2 runtime is installed on the user's machine. 
   3. Ensure the machine is configured to receive updates for Microsoft Office.
2. If the prerequisities are in place, you may have an incomplete or corrupted install of Microsoft Office:
   1. Do a repair or reinstall of Microsoft Office.
3. If you are unable to do a repair, you may place the required files needed by Microsoft Office in the appropriate folder. This may or may work depending on the state of your Microsoft Office install on the machine.
   1. Option 1: Place the required files under the Riva Insight program folder.
   2. Option 2: Place the required files under your Office program folder.

Manual options if unable to repair or reinstall Microsoft Office

1. Obtain the required files by downloading the WebView2 package.
2. Rename the download to have a ".zip" extension.
3. Extract the contents of the package (right-click > Extract...).

Option 1

1. Copy the entire "runtimes" folder to the Insight Install folder I.E. C:\Program Files (x86)\Omni\Riva Insight for Outlook\ so that it appears under C:\Program Files (x86)\Omni\Riva Insight for Outlook\runtimes\.
2. Restart Machine.

Option 2:

1. Determine if your Office Install is 32-bit or 64-bit:
   1. For 32-bit, Office will be installed under C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\.
   2. For 64-bit, Office will be installed under C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\.
2. For the version of Office, find the corresponsing WebView2Loader.dll file from the runtimes folder of the extracted package.
3. Copy WebView2Loader.dll to the "Office16" folder
4. Restart Machine.