Hi, But have you read EULA, it "may" mention that upgrades would happen automatically. And while installing if you checked "I Aggree", then better stop calling names at Google. :) Anyways, I love Microsoft as well as Google, as well as Apple, .. any good company for that matter who has made our life a little simpler. So definitely I don;t see it as evil, I just think that they have saved you an extra click & question "Do you want to update?"

I tried this, but due to some runtime exception, changed to Global Interface Table. Now the problem is: I create instance of IGlobalInterfaceTable and marshal my interface into it using RegisterInterfaceInGlobal(..). It returns me HRESULT of Successful. Now if I Unmarshall this interface in the same thread somewhere down the line, I can successfully retriev it & call methods on this interface. Problem is that in another thread, when I create instance of Global interface table, and access the interface using global cookie, I get HRESULT of 0x8000FFFF which means catastrophic failure. The second thread calls CoInitializeEx(NULL, COINIT_APARTMENTTHREADED); and CoUninitialize(). Also it waits for a event handle. Apart from the wait statement, the thread returns immediately. (it does not have message pump).

I am sorry about saying that this problem is solved. Actaully the problem of crash/exception remains where it was. However initially hosting activex control in invisible, and modeless ATL dialogs was not achieved by me, now it is possible.

Greetings All, I have a free threaded application with some 5 threads. In one of the threads I am creating an instance of IGlobalInterfaceTable and calling RegisterInterfaceInGlobal(..). It returns S_OK. If I unmarhsall this interface in the same thread somewhere down the line, it works properly. But when I create instance of IGlobalInterfaceTable in another thread, and call GetInterfaceFromGlobal(..), it returns me HRESULT of 0x8000FFFF which is Catastrophic failure. Can anyone help?

I have apartment threaded built VB activex control hosted on ATL dialog - they reside in thread T1. Another CComObject component in thread T2 of the same process - tries to access methods of this ActiveX control. There is an exception. I tried using Lock(), Unlock() provided by ATLModule, and also explicitly creating CComCriticalSection. But in vain. Can anyone help?

Thanks Jörgen, Solution did not require me to use Locks. But your answer did give a spark to think in a particular direction and finally I reached a solution. Suchit. (why doesn't my name appear besides by posting? I am logged in using my CodeProject ID).

I have a ATL dialog class based on CAxDialogImpl. And I have added message handler for WM_CREATE for it: BEGIN_MSG_MAP(CMyDialog) ... MESSAGE_HANDLER(WM_CREATE, OnCreate) MESSAGE_HANDLER(WM_DESTROY, OnDestroy) CHAIN_MSG_MAP(CAxDialogImpl) DEFAULT_REFLECTION_HANDLER() END_MSG_MAP() And when instance of it is created through: CMyDialog dlg; dlg.Create(::GetDesktopWindow()); it does not receive the WM_CREATE notification. Interestingly, it Does receive WM_DESTROY notification. Am i missing something?

I need to take an opinion on whether our approach is right (described below): Problem We have a ATL windows service which also exposes one COM class - say MainServer. MainServer interacts with other internal COM objects and a VB ActiveX control. Client application can instantiate MainServer component and fire some methods on it. The VB ActiveX control needs a form container - so we are using ATL dialog (invisible, modeless) to host it. And fire methods on the dialog. Output Service when tested through control panel GUI, it works perfectly and we can fire methods on ActiveX control through its container in ServiceWinMain(), Run() and other methods. But when tested with Client application which instantiates MainServer and fires methods, we have an unspecified exception. My questions are: 1. Is it possible to host ATL dialog like I mentioned in a Windows service? 2. What is the best way to make this application thread safe? 3. Is this approach right?