Tag: COM
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Common Pitfalls in COM Components and OCX / ActiveX Development - Visual Studio 32-bit / 64-bit, Registration, and Admin-Rights Traps
A practical guide to the 32-bit / 64-bit issues, Visual Studio 2022 becoming 64-bit, regsvr32 / Regasm, admin rights, HKCR / HKCU / HKLM, and STA / MTA pitfa...
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What Reg-Free COM Is - How Registration-Free COM Works, Where It Fits, and Where It Does Not
A practical introduction to registration-free COM, covering activation contexts, manifests, benefits, limits, and when it is a good fit in real Windows appli...
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How to Build Excel Report Output: COM Automation, Open XML, and Template-Based Tradeoffs
A practical decision guide for building Excel report output in Windows applications and business systems, comparing COM automation, direct xlsx generation, t...
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How to Use a .NET 8 DLL from VBA with Early Binding via COM and dscom
A practical guide to exposing a .NET 8 class library through COM, generating a type library with dscom, and using it from VBA with early binding instead of l...
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What COM / ActiveX / OCX Are - A Practical Guide to the Differences and Relationships
A practical explanation of what COM, ActiveX, and OCX are, how they differ, how they relate to OLE, where they were used, and how to think about them today.
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How to Handle ActiveX / OCX Today - A Decision Table for Keep / Wrap / Replace
A practical decision guide for what to do when you find ActiveX / OCX in a real project: keep it, wrap it, or replace it, with bitness, registration, browser...
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What Media Foundation Is - Why It Starts to Feel Like COM and Windows Media APIs at the Same Time
A practical introduction to Media Foundation that explains the basic terms of Windows media APIs together with COM concepts such as HRESULT, IMFSourceReader,...
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COM STA/MTA Basics - Threading Models and How to Avoid Hangs
A practical introduction to COM STA/MTA covering the apartment model, UI threads, message loops, marshaling, and the kind of hang patterns that appear in Win...
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How to Call a 64-bit DLL from a 32-bit Application - A Practical COM Bridge Case Study
When a 32-bit application cannot directly load a 64-bit DLL, an out-of-process COM bridge is often the cleanest solution. This article walks through the Wind...
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What COM Is - Why Windows COM Still Feels Beautifully Designed
This article explains what COM is from the viewpoints of Windows COM interface design, IUnknown, GUIDs, and binary compatibility, and why the model still mat...