Registration Free COM with exe, issues creating external manifest.

[Mistcurve]

I am trying to create manifest files to run my application via registration free COM with this guide: "Registration-Free Activation of COM Components: A Walkthrough (Registration-Free Activation of COM Components: A Walkthrough)".

My Client application is called client.exe and it was written in C#. The com application is called Afgrow.exe, and it's type library file is called afgrow.tlb.

Here is the manifest for client.exe.manifest:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"
manifestVersion="1.0">
<assemblyIdentity
type = "win32"
name = "client"
version = "1.0.0.0" />
<dependency>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity
type="win32"
name="afgrow.X"
version="1.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
</dependency>
</assembly>

Here is the manifest for afgrow.X.manifest:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"
manifestVersion="1.0">
<assemblyIdentity
type="win32"
name="afgrow.X"
version="1.0" />
<file name = "afgrow.tlb">
<comClass
clsid="{2E16F2E5-1A68-11D2-BF91-00A024CC2D70}"
threadingModel = "Apartment" />
<typelib tlbid="{2E16F2E6-1A68-11D2-BF91-00A024CC2D70}"
version="1.0" helpdir=""/>
</file>
</assembly>

The error I am getting is this:

Unable to cast COM object of type 'System.__ComObject' to interface type 'Afgrow.Application'. This operation failed because the QueryInterface call on the COM component for the interface with IID '{89909562-009C-11D2-BAAF-00A02479A4BC}' failed due to the following error: No such interface supported (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004002 (E_NOINTERFACE)).

I have tried a few different things, such as I read another post that said I should include <comInterfaceProxyStub> with relevant information, and omit the <file/> tags because my com server is a COM automation server (exe).

No matter what I do, the error message is unchanging. I even tried using no manifest whatsoever and get the same error.


Thanks,

Jimmy

Continue reading...