COM Registry Structure

COM uses the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT hive in the system registry to maintain object initialization parameters. Six categories of information are included in this key:

  • File extensions

  • ProgIDs

  • AppIDs

  • CLSIDs

  • Interfaces

  • TypeLibs

COM also uses the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Ole key to maintain security information. You learn both of these hives in the following sections.

File Extensions

File extensions are subkeys of the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT key. The file extension key has the following structure, as shown in Figure 8.4:

Figure 8.4. The file extension key.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
     { .extension } = { prog-id }

This value indicates where ...

Get COM+ Unleashed now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.