Managing COM+ Application Proxies

InstallShield 2024

Project: This information applies to the following project types:

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Basic MSI

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DIM

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InstallScript MSI

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Merge Module

The COM+ application proxy support configures the system settings that enable remote access from a client machine to the machine where the server application resides. You may also need to add the client application to your installation.

To configure the installation settings for a COM+ application proxy:

In the View List under Server Configuration, click Component Services.

In the Component Services explorer, select the COM+ application that you would like to configure if you have not already done so.

On the Installation tab, select the Proxy check box.

Clear the Server check box if your installation does not include the COM+ server application.

Note:You must select the Proxy check box, the Server check box, or both check boxes. Once you clear one of these check boxes, the other check box remains selected but it is no longer available; this prevents you from clearing both check boxes.

In the Remote Server Name box, specify the name of the remote server computer where the application resides. You can type the exact name or use the default [REMOTESERVERNAME] property, which is automatically created when you select the Proxy check box for a COM+ application in your installation.

Note:The default value for the [REMOTESERVERNAME] property is the name of the machine used to add the COM+ application to the installation project in InstallShield. To change the value of the [REMOTESERVERNAME] property, use the Property Manager view.

If you would like the end user to be able to specify the remote server, add a Remote Server edit field control to an end-user dialog in the Dialogs view. Set the Property value of this control to REMOTESERVERNAME.

Select the Enable distributed COM on the client machine check box if appropriate. Clear this check box if you know that distributed component object model (DCOM) is already enabled on all client machines and you will not have administrative privileges on them.

If you select this check box, Y is written at installation time to the EnableDCOM entry of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Ole registry key to enable DCOM.

Note:End users can enable or disable DCOM on their machines using the Component Services administrative tool in the Control Panel. However, the application proxy will not work on a client machine if DCOM is disabled on that machine. For this reason, you may want to select the Enable distributed COM on the client machine check box.

If an end user uninstalls the application proxy support, the EnableDCOM registry entry is not changed, even if the installation process involved changing this registry entry to Y on the target machine.

When you add a COM+ application proxy to your project, InstallShield creates a corresponding component for each of the features that are associated with the server component. This component has the COM+ application’s server .dll files. These server files are installed on the client machine for the type libraries.

Note:If the selected COM+ application includes both server and proxy installations, you can add installation conditions so that the appropriate COM+ application is installed on the target machine. For more information, see Including a COM+ Application that Targets Servers and Client Machines.