What You Need

Many developers are unaware that Windows XP comes with a newer version of COM+ than Windows 2000 has. Normally, this isnt an issue because the newer version simply contains additional features you can choose to use or not. How ever, for this book, youll find that the COM+ 1.5 version supplied with Win dows XP is superior when working with managed components youll find that COM+ 1.0 works but requires special handling. In addition, COM+ 1.5 is the only version that provides SOAP support. If you plan to create the SOAP exam ple in Chapter 11, you must use Windows XP as your development platform because there is no COM+ 1.5 upgrade for Windows 2000. Well discuss the advantages of COM+ 1.5 more within the book.

Although the COM+ examples in this book will work just fine with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 1.0, youll want to use Visual Studio .NET 2003 whenever possible. Visual Studio .NET 2003 provides features that reduce the time required to create the COM+ components.