>BTW, the client could be not only the user application itself, but another COM component too. So, you may have a client application, which instantiates the remote COM server (EXE) on some other PC, and that COM server instantiates another COM object on the same remote PC. The second COM relative to the first one (depending on your design) can be either In-Process (DLL) as they run on the same PC, or Out-Of-Process (EXE). In this case the second COM does not even have to be registered on the client PC<

It's complicated, isn't it? Will .net technology make things simpler for us?

Alan