Question : developing office 2003 project on office 2007 machine  using vb.net 2008

I have office 2007.  I am developing a vb.net 2008 project to work with office 2003 excel which will be on the users machine.  Here is the question -- after reading tons of stuff about this.

in my list of references in vb.net I have:

Microsoft.interop version  11 and 12
microsoft. office tools.excel version 8 and 9
Microsoft object lib 12 and 5

I am developing on the 2007 office machine for a project that will  use office 2003 excel.  I am only creating spreadsheets, reading and writing to spread sheets.

I have read alot of conflicting info so here are my questions.  
1.  if I use late binding, what if any of the above references will I need.
2.  if I use early binding can I use any of the references above to allow me to develop in office 2007 excel of the development machine for the 2003 office machines to do the tasks that I layed out above.    If yes what do I use and which versions.

does one need to use VSTO for this?  if not what references are needed?  using 2007  get the sense that not all of these reference types refer to VSTO.  There seem to be so many ways to do this task and not sure which one should be used.
 

I do not develop office projects let alone excel ones so I would appreciate any help on this.

Answer : developing office 2003 project on office 2007 machine  using vb.net 2008

To clarify:

Re: COM references, what I meant was that if you create a VS reference to Excel by browsing to the Office folder in Program Files and selecting the Excel object library, VS will automatically create an interop for you because the Office libraries are COM componenets not .NET assemblies. This is what I meant by creating your own interops. YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS. Microsoft have already done this for you in the PIA.

Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel v 11 is part of the Office 2003 PIA. If you see this reference in the .NET tab of the references dialog in VS, you must already have the PIA in the GAC so you don't need to download the PIA.

Yes, ignore the COM tab.

Re: VSTO, a VSTO solution doesn't need to be attached to a specific spreadsheet. You can install your VSTO solution for a particular user, and every time that user starts Excel, your solution will be loaded. If you customise the Excel toolbars or menus, this customisation will be present in all spreadsheets. It sounds like this may be a suitable approch for your requirements.

Pete