No COM object available in Component Services snap-in

I have been working with Windows Server 2008 R2 64bit and Windows 7 64bit a lot lately. In doing so, I have noticed a problem when installing a specific product that requires a COM server. When I launch the MMC to access the Component Services snap-in, I find the COM object for this software doesn’t exist. I have double-checked this until I was blue in the face. Where is that COM object? I have properly installed and can use the product, but it simply doesn’t exist in the DCOM config portion of Component Services. Like all good IT professionals, I turn to Google. (The link below further explains the problem and solution for this.) Apparently, Windows removed a process called Registry Reflection from Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 OS’s. Registry Reflection was a process that would replicate registry keys between both 32bit and 64bit registry views. Since this was removed, all registered 32bit COM objects are only available in the 32bit version of the MMC. Once you access those objects through the 32bit MMC they will replicate and become available to you in the 64bit version. To access the 32bit version of the MMC, run this command “mmc -32” from the command line.

Read more about this solution by visiting Maarten’s blog – My COM server is gone from Component Services (DCOMCNFG)

Andrew D. Skovran
Support Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.