DCOM calling .Net class library

[Afraits]

The company I work for has a datareceipt application written in VB6 which is setup to detect client files arriving via FTP, select a processing server and fire off a client specific ActiveX to process said data.

As we are now trying to write all new software in .NET, the new clients processing code has been written as a .NET class library. What do I have to do to enable the receipt server to use DCOM to launch the processing object? No changes to the receipt application are authorised at this time and I have read that it is possible to make class libraries visible to DCOM so that DCOM works as if they were written in VB6 but I cant find the specifics of what I need to do.

I would appreciate anyone who can point me in the direction of a good tutorial, or even better provide advice and/or examples in reply.

 

[Mike_R]

Im not that far along in my COM Interop learning, nor do I know a thing about DCOM, but hopefully I can help, maybe a little...

The following two links deal with DCOM and .Net:

(1) Using Web Services Instead of DCOM (MSDN)
(2) Offset weaknesses of DCOM with socket (CodeProject)

The first one looks more promising. If the classes are in .Net, then I think that the first article may be the ticket. On the other hand, if you really want to expose your .Net Assembly to DCOM (I guess because other components will remain Legacy, and will therefor need to be using DCOM?) then I really dont know.

The following are more general COM Interop Articles that could be of interest to you:

Basic:
(1) Introduction to COM Interop (MSDN)
(2) How to call a VB.NET assembly from VB 6.0 and vice versa (MSDN)
(3) Interoperating with Unmanaged Code (MSDN)

Advanced:
(1) Interoperability Between .NET & Win32 (Brian Long)
(2) NET Interoperability - COM Interop (Brian Long)
(3) Troubleshooting .NET Interoperability (MSDN)

I hope this helps...

-- Mike

 

[Afraits]

Thanks Ill check them out - and yes other components are remaining legacy (for the time being at least - though we do have one written in VB4! that nobody wants to touch to give you an idea of when they are likely to be upgraded), so I do need to expose the .Net library to DCOM.