DCOM

DCOM stands for "Distributed" COM. In the previous two articles, we have demonstrated COM clients and servers running on the same

computer. In this article, we'll discuss how to extend our range into the area of DCOM and distributed computing.

Most COM programmers only use local "in-process" servers, which run as DLLs. A DLL loads into the process space of the client program, and is

therefore quite reliable and efficient. We are going to be using an EXE-based server. This means the server and client run as separate

programs. This makes sense, when you consider that the two programs are running on different computers. It does, however, introduce a new

level of difficulty.

The good news is that converting from COM to DCOM is easy. The bad news is that there are a lot of things that can go wrong in the process of

connecting the client and server. In this article, the emphasis is on helping you avoid the problems.