Traditional COM Registration

InstallShield 2026

Project: This information applies to the following project types:

• Basic MSI
• DIM
• InstallScript MSI
• Merge Module
• MSI Database
• MSM Database

InstallShield supports multiple methods for registering a COM server on a target machine. The following methods are the ones used traditionally:

• The COM information can be extracted from the file at build time (or design time) and written to the COM-related tables of your .msi database.
• The COM server’s self-registration function can be called at installation time.

The first method listed—extracting the COM information and writing it to the .msi database—is preferred over the self-registration method. The first method writes the COM class information to the Class, ProgID, and Registry tables of the .msi database.

This section includes the following topics:

• Determining Whether a COM Server Supports Self-Registration
• Extracting COM Information from a COM Server
• Filtering Registry Changes for COM Extraction
• Self-Registering COM Servers