Is it possible to wrap the COM DLL in application without registering it?

Question

Currently, you will have to regsvr32 COM.dll before you can use the COM object in the application (EXE).

Is there any way to wrap the COM.dll somehow in the EXE when deployment, so that the users don't have to manually register the COM.dll ?

I am using Delphi XE8

Answer 1

I recently was looking into something similar, and it turns out it's pretty straight-forward to do. A COM DLL has to export a DllGetClassObject entry among a few others. In general the selected development platform does this for you, but in the final DLL it's right there, both available for use by the COM sub-system, but just as well by yourself with code like this:

type
  T_DGCO=function(const CLSID, IID: TGUID; var Obj): HResult; stdcall;//DllGetClassObject
var
  p:T_DGCO;
  f:IClassFactory;
  x:IMyObject;//replace by an interface of choice
begin
  p:=GetProcAddress(LoadLibrary(FullPathToDLL),'DllGetClassObject');
  if @p=nil then RaiseLastOSError;
  OleCheck(p(CLASS_MyObject,IClassFactory,f));
  OleCheck(f.CreateInstance(nil,IMyObject,x));
  x.Hello('World');//or whatever your object does
end;