Register for COM interop disabled in VS 2008

[Timothy Dean]

When I create a new Class Library project in Visual Studio 2008, go in to
the project settings under build at the bottom, the "Register for COM
Interop" check box is disabled. If I go into Application settings, and
check the output type, it is Class Library. If I do the same thing in VS
2005, the "Register for COM Interop" check box is enabled. What am I
missing?

Can I create a C# COM server using the compact framework that I can call
from C++ through COM? Thanks.

Timothy Dean

[Chris Tacke, eMVP]

EE hosting is not supported, so you cannot create a managed COM component
with the Compact Framework in any tool.

--

Chris Tacke, Embedded MVP
OpenNETCF Consulting
Giving back to the embedded community
http://community.OpenNETCF.com

"Timothy Dean" <my_e...@this.com> wrote in message
news:eYAXYMnR...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

[Timothy Dean]

What is EE hosting? When I create a smart device project using VS 2005,
create a class library, and go to build settings, the "Register for COM
interop" is enabled. Any idea why? I have no problem creating a C++ COM
server that I can call from a C# smart device project. What I need to do
now is create a C# COM dll that I can call from C++ on the device. This is
not possible? Thanks.

Timothy Dean

"Chris Tacke, eMVP" <ctacke.at.opennetcf.dot.com> wrote in message
news:uwxtl72R...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

[Chris Tacke, eMVP]

EE Hosting is the ability of a native assembly to start up thge execution
ngine under which the managed component would run. This doesn't exist in
the CF and never has - it's one of the major limitations remaining.

Why you could select "register for COM interop" on device projects in VS '05
would simply be a bug. I guarantee that you never could actually have used
the generated object for COM.

Until the CF team sees fit to give us Hosting, this is just not a use case
that can be done. There's not even a hack or kludge to get it to work.

--

Chris Tacke, Embedded MVP
OpenNETCF Consulting
Giving back to the embedded community
http://community.OpenNETCF.com

"Timothy Dean" <my_e...@this.com> wrote in message

news:O%23tmdGNS...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[Timothy Dean]

Wow, that is a limitation. I have a mobile application in C++ that supports
many barcode scanners. If I run into a manufacturer that only provides a
.NET API, I am in trouble, right? Any ideas on how to do that without COM?
That means you can't write an activeX control in .NET either, right?
Thanks.

Timothy Dean

"Chris Tacke, eMVP" <ctacke.at.opennetcf.dot.com> wrote in message

news:%23q%23wbONS...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

[Chris Tacke, eMVP]

> That means you can't write an activeX control in .NET either, right?
> Thanks.

Correct. Native code in the CF simply cannot call into managed code unless
the managed code is in a process started by a managed application. So you
can pass a managed callback to a native DLL and it can make the call, or a
native app can post a message or queue an item and the managed side can get
it, but there is simply no way to host a managed assembly in a native app.

If an OEM provides a .NET-only API (unlikey I would suspect) you're probably
not sunk. There's no way they're writing a driver, and unlikely they're
doing any hardware access in native code (for the very same reason you can't
do this), so they'll likey have a native shim that they're calling in to.