The .Net and Com Interoperability Handbook

This book explains the .NET Framework from the perspective of a COM/COM+ programmer. It compares COM/COM+ and .NET. It also shows readers how to use their existing COM/COM+ components from .NET and how to call .NET components from their Win32/COM applications. This is not the kind of cursory coverage of COM interoperability that is found in most .NET Framework books. The author delves deep into the subject, covering items such as the effect of the COM Apartment threading model, ActiveX controls, late binding, and the impedance mismatch between reference counting in COM and garbage collection in .NET. The book also features extensive coverage of how to use the COM+ Services from a .NET application. In the initial stages of the hype surrounding Microsoft's introduction of .NET and the .NET Framework, many people assumed that the .NET Framework was the end of COM/COM+. It turns out that quite the opposite is true. Very few companies have the luxury of halting new work for several months while they migrate all of their code to use the .NET framework. At most organizations, .NET code and COM code will need to work together (interoperate) for some time to come. Microsoft's acceptance of this reality shows in the substantial amount of effort that they have put into .NET/COM interoperability.