How can two instances of my interop dll talk to each other?

[littleisharp]

Hi

I think this is a general architecture query really...

I have a winforms app that other third-party Access/Dephi/Vb6 etc apps need to talk to in real-time. In other words, an Access app for example must be able to send and receive messages with a running instance of my winforms app.

I am implementing this as follows:

I wrote a COM-callable .Net assembly with a Send function and a Receive Event.

So both Access clients and my winforms app can add a reference to this dll, call its Send function, and handle its Receive event.

However, I need these two running instances of my dll to be able to talk to each other. For example, Access only receives messages from the instance of the dll that it has created. I need it to also receive messages from the instance of the dll that my winforms app created.

Basically, its a Single Instance scenario, like using shared members amongst different instances of the same class, I need shared members amongst different instances of the dll.

What are my options? I have never used COM+ before but someone suggested I look into using this.

One implementation I thought of is to use sockets within the dll - so every message it receives it sends to a socket and every other running instance of the dll will be listening to the socket and get the message.

There must be a better way tho. Any ideas?

Have I been clear enough with the problem?

Thanks very much for any help

Helen