Navigation

	Home Page
	Index
	All Pages

Quick Search
Advanced Search »

Contributor Links

	Create a new Page
	Administration
	File Management
	Login/Logout
	Your Profile

Other Wiki Sections

Software

Creating a COM object in .NET

Information in this article was condensed from the following URLs, with contributions from Tony Chu and Jorge Castillo.

• http://www.simple-talk.com/content/print.aspx?article=276
• http://bytes.com/groups/net-c/428716-c-com-interop-classinterfacetype-none
  

Table of Contents [Hide/Show]    Background    Explanation    Procedure       Visual Studio 2005       Visual Basic 6.0

{outline||<1> - }

Background¶

(coming soon)

Explanation¶

(coming soon)

Procedure¶

Visual Studio 2005¶

1. In AssemblyInfo.cs set [assembly: ComVisible(true)]

2. Create an interface with the following attributes.

[ComVisible(true), 
GuidAttribute("my-guid"), 
InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsDual)]
public interface IEngine
{
	string HelloWorld();
}

3. Assign a guid to the GuidAttribute (via Tools menu -> Create Guid). Note: Be sure to remove the opening and closing braces from the guid. For example, if the Create Guid tool gives you {2D8128D8-8A82-45e5-87CA-6EF158154FEF}, use 2D8128D8-8A82-45e5-87CA-6EF158154FEF instead for the GuidAttribute.

4. Create a class that implements the class and with the following attributes.

[ComVisible(true), 
GuidAttribute("my-guid"), 
ProgId("MyCompany.MyNamespace.MyClassName"), 
ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.None)]
public class Engine : IEngine
{
	public string HelloWorld()
	{
		return "Hello world";
	}
}

5. Generate a key: in a Visual Studio Command Prompt window, navigate to your source code folder, then execute the following command.

sn -k "MyCompany.MyNamespace.snk"

6. In Visual Studio, go to the Properties page for your project -> Signing tab.

• Select the Sign the assembly checkbox
• Specify the SNK file you just created
  

7. Build the .NET Assembly

8. In a Command Window, execute the following commands. The gacutil.exe program will be installed in one of the following folders, depending on what's installed on your system. Use the appropriate one in place of GacUtilFolder in the script below.

• If you have Visual Studio 2005 installed — C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\gacutil.exe
• If you have just the .NET Framework 2.0 installed — C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v2.0\Bin\gacutil.exe
  

rem Ensure the install folder exists
mkdir "C:\Program Files\MyDeploymentFolder"

rem Unregister old version
"C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\RegAsm.exe" /u "C:\Program Files\MyDeploymentFolder\MyCompany.MyNamespace.dll"

rem Uninstall old version from the GAC
"GacUtilFolder\Gacutil.exe" -u "MyCompany.MyNamespace"

rem Copy the new version to the install folder
COPY MyCompany.MyNamespace.* "C:\Program Files\MyDeploymentFolder\"

rem Install the new version to the GAC
"GacUtilFolder\Gacutil.exe" -i "C:\Program Files\MyDeploymentFolder\MyCompany.MyNamespace.dll"

rem Register the new version
"C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\RegAsm.exe" /tlb "MyCompany.MyNamespace.dll"

Visual Basic 6.0¶

1. In the Project References, add a reference to the COM object you just created in .NET. The name will be the same as the namespace in your C# code.

2. Code against the reference as you would any COM object.