Introduction

Welcome to .NET and COM: The Complete Interoperability Guide. First, to avoid any unsatisfied customers, let me make clear that this is not a book about domain names for Web sites! This is a book about two technologies that enable software developers to leverage existing software while taking advantage of the Microsoft .NET platform: COM Interoperability (often abbreviated as COM Interop), and Platform Invocation Services (often shortened to Platform Invoke, or simply PInvoke). Without them, widespread adoption of the Microsoft .NET platform would not be growing as quickly as it has been, because developers of .NET software projects would essentially be forced to start from scratch.

In observing the history of the .NET platform, ...

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