Determining Whether a COM Server Supports Self-Registration

InstallShield 2024

Not all COM servers support self-registration. Although it is likely that you will know which files in your installation are self-registering, there may be times when you do not know. Because you must handle self-registering files differently than non-self-registering files, you need to be able to determine if a file is self-registering.

In most cases, you can determine whether a file is self-registering if you add it to an InstallShield project. InstallShield tests COM server files when they are added to a project to determine if they are self-registering files. If InstallShield determines that a COM server added to your project is self-registering:

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For Windows Installer–based projects: InstallShield sets the COM Extract at Build property of the file’s component to Yes (if you have specified on the Preferences tab of the Options dialog box that COM extraction should occur at build time).

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For InstallScript-based projects: InstallShield marks the file as self-registering.