COM and DCOM (Compact 2013)

3/26/2014

Windows Embedded Compact supports Component Object Model (COM), a platform-independent, distributed, object-oriented system for creating binary software components that can interact. For more information about COM, see the Microsoft Website COM (Windows). Specifically, Windows Embedded Compact offers the following levels of COM support for applications:

  • Minimal COM provides a baseline API set for COM object creation and requires about 10-20 KB of memory.
  • COM provides a midrange implementation of COM and OLE automation that supports only in-process free-threaded objects and requires about 100-200 KB of memory.
  • COM Storage adds structured storage functionality to Minimal COM, COM, or DCOM implementations.

All run-time images include Ole32.dll. This is true whether the run-time support is Minimal COM, COM, or DCOM.

There is no support for shell-based interactions, such as menu merging or drag-and-drop operations.

Distributed COM (DCOM) remoting is not included in Windows Embedded Compact. As a result, DCOM for Windows Embedded Compact supports only local process communications and not cross-computer COM, and application programs that use the methods defined in DCOM interfaces cannot interact or communicate with DCOM objects on other machines.

To add this feature to your OS, see COM and DCOM Catalog Items and Sysgen Variables.

For reference information, see COM Reference.

Sample application code is available at %_WINCEROOT%\public\dcom\sdk\samples.

See Also

Other Resources

Application Development