How do I use a 32 Bit COM object from a 64 bit process?

Question

I Use Jacob (JAVA COM Bridge) on a 64 Bit Machine and want to load COM Objects from a 32 bit DLL. How can I do that?

Answer 1

You will need to host the 32 bit COM object in a 32bit process. So either your entire app will have to run 32bit or youll need to place the COM object in something like COM+ and use cross process calls.

Answer 2

I solved the problem as follows: Created a small 32 bit out-of-process COM server (.exe) that serves as a factory COM object to create the needed 32 bit objects. So now my app is running 64bit and using 32 bit COM objects.

My64bitApp<-->32BitOutOfProcFactory<-->32bitCOMServerDLL