The Component Object Model (COM) enables functionality to be encapsulated in a COM application that can be reused by many different applications. DCOM technology enables a COM application to be accessed from different computers over a network.
Typically, COM and COM+ components are housed within dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) or executable (.exe) files. You can install these components on a client computer or on a remote computer. When you install these components on a remote computer, the call is made by DCOM, which is based on remote procedure calls (RPCs).
For tasks related to administering DCOM applications that do not appear here, see DCOM (