Craig,

>I'm looking to use DCOM in a VFP program for VFP8.0 and pass a command/variable to someone else using some other software. They would like me to pass a parameter or varible them using DCOM.

DCOM simply means Distributed COM, which means you are calling a COM object that resides and is registered on another computer. If you want to consume a DCOM object on another computer, you can use:

CREATEOBJECTEX("projectname.classname","remotecomputername or IP address")

then make your method calls just like a local object. Or you can register the DCOM class on your own computer (which just sets up registry entries pointing the projectname.classname to the correct computer) and use CREATEOBJECT. I prefer the EX version of CREATEOBJECT for that, since it does not require registering the remote DCOM on your own computer.

If, however, you want to set up a VFP EXE as a DCOM object that others can access (you are the provider in that case), look at the docs related to creating COM objects as EXE's, which will register the COM object on your computer and make it accessible by DCOM from other computers. Optionally, you can host your COM in MTS as a COM+ object. None of these approaches are simple, but they are doable if you are willing to walk the learning curve.

If you have a web server available, you can optionally set up your class and its method calls as Web Services if the other programs are capable of consuming web services.

Bottom line: if you want to consume someone else's DCOM object, CREATEOBJECTEX is the simplest way to go. If you want to provide a DCOM object for others to use... prepare yourself for some challenges in the larning curve. Good luck and have fun! The VFP8 help topic for CREATEOBJECTEX has good info, and also links at the bottom to info on creating DCOM servers.