Is there a way for registration free activation of EXE COM components

Question

Is there a way to activate a COM component which is an EXE COM application and also it's dependent COM dlls? I want to activate this COM component from .NET application(VS 2005/VS 2008).

The path of call is C# application --> invoking out-of-proc exe(this is through COM) and then this out-of-proc invokes few COM dlls

Wampler

Answer 1

Reg-free COM does not work for out of process components.

ActiveX EXE and ActiveX Document project types cannot be used with Reg-Free COM, as discussed in the sidebar.

Simplify App Deployment with ClickOnce and Registration-Free COM

Antre

Answer 2

Look at Microsoft Forum Registration-Free EXE COM Server ? So, There is no direct way to do this work whithot any additional code. As for me, the code still needs for classic registration to correct date marshaling.

Deft

Answer 3

Registration free activation is described here. Roughly speaking, it looks like you create your COM components and clients as usual, then put them all into the same directory with a manifest file which contains the COM registration information.

Matthias

I had seen this and tried using this for the application. it works for a dll, but not for a exe.as I said the path of call is C# application --> invoking out-of-proc exe(this is through COM) and then this out-of-proc invokes few COM dlls. – Wampler

oh sorry, I don't think that registration free COM activation really supports DCOM – Matthias

thanks for the quick answer. is it documented by microsoft in some place that out-of-proc COM is not supported for registration free activiatation? I searched but couldn't get any information on this. – Wampler

I don't have documentation links, but from what i know there is no regfreecom support for out-of-proc servers. – Supinator

I found the link here which says out-of-proc is not supported and only dlls are supported. link - msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc188708.aspx#S4; search tag "The limitations of Reg-Free COM" – Wampler