.NET application with an OLE automation server works with IIS5 but does not work with IIS6

[Mirek]

We have a WEB application (C#, .NET 2.0) that uses an OLE automation server to create some special scientific bitmaps which are then displayed on ASPX pages by the WEB application. The OLE server is a DLL created in VC6 + MFC (i.e. it is a COM in-process-server) and runs on the server-side. This WEB application works fine on a WEB server running on WindowsXP + IIS5 but unfortunately it does not work on Windows Server 2003 X2, Standard edition, SP2 with IIS6. We think that this must be a security problem but we are not able to solve it although we have spent many hours on it.

Here are some details:
1/ The OLE automation server works fine on the Windows Server 2003 if we run it from another client application (a desktop application created just for testing of the OLE server). This means that the OLE server is registered correctly and can work on the computer.

2/ The WEB application can communicate with the OLE server and use some of its methods. Unfortunately, the most important method of the OLE server needs to create a hidden window for a while (less than 1 second ) and this is the moment when the method fails, i.e. the OLE server is not able to create a hidden pop-up window.

3/ The same WEB application works fine on WinXP with IIS5 and therefore I think that this is just a security problem on IIS6. We were trying to find and change security settings for this OLE server in DCOM config in component services (using the dcomcnfg.exe) but we did not find it there. We can find its Class_ID in the registration database but we cannot find it in DCOM. I’m convinced that the OLE server is registered correctly because the testing desktop application can use it correctly and the WEB application can communicate with it too.

4/ We register the OLE server as follows:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\regsvr32.exe MyOleSrv.dll
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\regtlibv12.exe MyOleSrv.tlb

At this moment we have no idea how to continue and therefore we will appreciate any help.

Thanks
Mirek

From http://www.developmentnow.com/g/19_0_0_0_0_0/dotnet-framework-component-services.htm

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[Jportelas]

Can you post some of the error or exception data?

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Jairo Andrés Portela S.
.Net developer