Chapter 2: COM and .NET

Overview

In Chapter 1, you learned that theres a place for COM in your .NET application development toolbox. Likewise, theres a place for COM+ when youre working with .NET. Although COM+ doesnt have as long a history as COM, its based on COM technology and provides added value that developers still need, even if theyre using .NET for most of their development tasks .

In many respects, this chapter continues the story begun in Chapter 1. It takes the next logical step of addressing the need for COM+ in .NET application development tasks. This chapter is an overviewwell cover most of the issues in this chapter in much greater depth as the book progresses. Youll also learn about two valuable Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins in this chapter. The value of these tools becomes apparent in later chapters, when you learn how to perform application tasks such as installing a COM+ application.

Note 

MMC is a container application that holds special COM components known as snap-ins . Most snap-ins provide some type of administrative aid, but a developer could create a snap-in to serve just about any purpose. A preconfigured setup that includes one or more snap-ins is called a console . Youll find a number of consoles in the Administrative Tools folder of the Control Panel. The two consoles discussed in this chapter help you configure the COM+ Component Services and the .NET Framework.