#1 Burning Software

Hi,

I'm using Windows' registration-free COM to avoid having to register COM and ActiveX components, and to avoid problems with other applications that use StarBurn. This works with all COM DLLs I have been using before, including StarBurn OCX. Never had any problems.

However, with StarBurnX, I get an InvalidCastException resulting from E_NOINTERFACE when just trying to call:

IStarBurnX starBurn = new StarBurnXClass();
starBurn.Initialize(...); // <- InvalidCastException

So, creating the COM class abviously succeeded without any problem - QueryInterface however returns E_NOINTERFACE.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Stefan

Register the component within a system. For now that's the only way to proceed.

Any updated advice on this issue? I'm using two burning libraries in my application, both over COM, but only StarBurn causes very many of these error messages (I got a couple of hundred error reports). I'm registering the StarBurnX.dll on every setup and even attempt to do so at the startup of the application, if StarBurnX.dll cannot be loaded. The DLL can be loaded fine in such cases though. Would re-registering the DLL help? Actually, even if it did, the application would need admin permissions first.

You need remove and de-register existing DLL first. If multiple apps share the same DLL you'll have to use manifests.

So...on each setup I am supposed to de-register and then register the DLL?
What about manifests? Can you elaborate a little on that one?

No you don't need. Stick with the manifest thing (Dima will put some more light on it now).

Hello,

1) Use the IStarBurnX2 interface;

IStarBurnX2 starBurn = new StarBurnXClass();

2) Refresh the reference of StarBurnX component for your application;

3) Select the right target platform - x86 or x64 .. do not use the "independent" target platform;

4) Installation of StarBurnX include two minifest files - "StarBurnX12x64.dll.manifest" and "StarBurnX12.dll.manifest";

Note: the "free-registration" method should work with StarBurnX ... at least you are first who reported about this problem

Regards,

Dmitry

So StarBurn should work without a COM component being registered?
If so, it doesn't.

What I did:
IStarBurnX2 starBurn = new StarBurnXClass();
Platform: x86 (need that for other libraries as well)
Application folder contains: StarBurn.dll, StarBurnX12.dll, StarBurnX12.dll.manifest, RocketDivision.StarBurnX12.Interop.dll

References in main application (entry assembly):



References in calling assembly (the one with the initialisation code from above):



When I try to init StarBurn, the following exception occurs (StarBurnX is unregistered):




Before your post, I had it set up a bit differently. I used StarBurnX.dll directly as reference and set it to "Isolated". In this secenario, I only had a single reference in the calling assembly. But it doesn't work any better, with or without manifest files.

Hello,

Which Windows version do you use?:)

Regards,

Dmitry

Windows 7 (x64).

Ok, we will test this issue!

Regards,

Dmitry

Any news yet?

(I hate to annoy, but this issue is rather important to me.)

Hello,


Not yet, sorry

We will investigate it ASAP!!!

Regards,

Dmitry

Looks like I found a solution.

There seem to be two typical ways to add a registration free COM reference to a .NET project.

1. Register the COM-DLL on the developer machine, Add Reference --> COM, then set IsoLated=true in the properties of the DLL after it has been added to the project.
2. Instead of the DLL, add the manifest file (in our case, StarBurnX12.manifest) as reference.

This causes manifest files to be generated along with the DLL, and would allow us to make use of the COM-DLLs without registration.

Both of these methods, however, do not work (will result in error 0x80004002 for example) without the tweak below.
To work around this problem (see https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/114083/), you need to add the comInterfaceExternalProxyStub elements, which exist in the StarBurnX12.manifest or can also be generated manually (to get the necessary information like IIDS, use http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5233b70d-d9b2-4cb5-aeb6-45664be858b6&displaylang=en), to the manifest files generated by Visual Studio.

I created a small tool for myself, which I use within the postbuild event and copies the necessary XML elements from a given source manifest to the Visual Studio generated target manifest file.

Hello,

Ok, Thanx!! We will investigate this solution ASAP!!

Regards,

Dmitry