The next release of Windows 2000,
Windows XP, will be the first Windows operating
system to include the next version of COM+, called COM+ 1.5. This
appendix describes the new features and capabilities of this future
release of COM+. The current version of COM+ is referred to as COM+
1.0.
In COM+ 1.5, Microsoft improved COM+ usability in a number of ways and addressed some of COM+ 1.0’s pitfalls described in this book. Microsoft also added new features to existing services and laid the foundation for integration with .NET services. COM+ 1.5 is fully backward-compatible with COM+ 1.0 components and applications. In fact, when you export a COM+ 1.5 application, the export wizard lets you export the application in COM+ 1.0 format to be installed on machines running COM+ 1.0 (although the new features and properties will be lost in such an export).
The COM+ Catalog interfaces and collections have been extended to handle the new additions. When describing a new service, the new corresponding Catalog items are provided whenever possible because no other public documentation is currently available.
Under COM+ 1.0, the only way to know the
activation type of a COM+ application was to bring up its Activation
tab and examine it. The COM+ 1.5 Explorer assigns different
icons to different application types, so you can deduce the
application’s type (server, library, or proxy) just by viewing
it. Service applications, (discussed shortly), a fourth application
type available in COM+ 1.5, also have a distinct icon. A new folder
under My Computer called Running Processes
contains all the currently executing applications for easy runtime
administration.