Configuring COM+ Applications
The primary benefit of using COM+ is that you can configure a component or the application containing it without changing any code on the object or the client side. This advantage enables you to focus your object code on its intended purpose, relying on the various services COM+ provides instead of having to develop them yourself. This section shows you how to configure some of the application-level options for the Hello COM+ program you created.
COM+ Application Types
As mentioned previously, the application activation type (a server or a library application) is a configurable application-level attribute called activation. You can configure the application’s activation type in the application’s properties page, under the Activation tab (see Figure 1-9).

Figure 1-9. Application Activation tab
Changing the application type has significant implications for most COM+ services. The application type is a design-time decision that should consider the security needs of your components, the calling patterns of your clients, fault isolation (a server application gets its own process), and specific COM+ services requirements. Throughout the book, a particular service configuration that is related to the activation type is pointed out explicitly. However, even without knowing much about COM+, you can use the following rule to decide on your activation type: prefer ...