About COM/DCOM

The Microsoft^TM Component Object Model (COM) is a component software architecture that allows developers to partition an application into multiple components that can be developed and installed independently of each other. COM is the underlying architecture that forms the foundation for higher-level software services, like those provided by OLE (Object Linking and Embedding). OLE services span various aspects of component software, including compound documents, custom controls, inter-application scripting, data transfer, and other software interactions. Using COM allows software objects to be reused for a variety of applications. Because of its binary standard, COM allows any two components to communicate regardless of the language in which they were written.

The Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) is an extension of COM, and supports communication among objects residing on different computers; LANs, WANs, and the Internet. With DCOM, these software objects can be reused over a distributed Environment.

COM objects or components are individual modular software routines that can be reused within applications. COM objects are reusable compiled binary objects, as opposed to reusable sections of code. Creating an instance of a COM object provides a reference through which you can access the object’s functionality.