COM & .NET Component Services

Appendix B. COM+ 1.5

The next release of Windows 2000, Windows XP, will be the first Windows operating system to include the next version of COM+, called COM+ 1.5. This appendix describes the new features and capabilities of this future release of COM+. The current version of COM+ is referred to as COM+ 1.0.

In COM+ 1.5, Microsoft improved COM+ usability in a number of ways and addressed some of COM+ 1.0’s pitfalls described in this book. Microsoft also added new features to existing services and laid the foundation for integration with .NET services. COM+ 1.5 is fully backward-compatible with COM+ 1.0 components and applications. In fact, when you export a COM+ 1.5 application, the export wizard lets you export the application in COM+ 1.0 format to be installed on machines running COM+ 1.0 (although the new features and properties will be lost in such an export).

The COM+ Catalog interfaces and collections have been extended to handle the new additions. When describing a new service, the new corresponding Catalog items are provided whenever possible because no other public documentation is currently available.

Improved User Interface Usability

Under COM+ 1.0, the only way to know the activation type of a COM+ application was to bring up its Activation tab and examine it. The COM+ 1.5 Explorer assigns different icons to different application types, so you can deduce the application’s type (server, library, or proxy) just by viewing it. Service applications, (discussed shortly), ...