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 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=66689).