But your opportunities for using COM under .net will be less and less. For example, with visual studio tools for .net (http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/office/) you will be able to use vb.net and c# with word and excel. So scratch that one off your list.

>>>
>>>the question *IS* does a `.NET built app` DIRECTLY access WIN32 libraries?
>>>i do not believe it does... i believe it gets at WIN32 via COM1.5/COM+.
>>>Thus, in effect .NET is a system built on top of COM.
>>
>>Nope. Under .NET, COM is dead.
>
>After some digging here is what I came up with :
>
>`COM interoperability is necessary in order to access native system APIs, such as shell integration, DirectX, Microsoft Office, and the Windows Registry, as well as custom legacy COM objects.`
>
>James Park, OReilly.
>
>So COM aint dead.
>
>I could die before COM does.