.NET C# Interoperability

Devin Rychetnik — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 15:24:00 GMT

When dealing with managed code and unmanaged code together there are several nuances that change the way that interoperability is implemented and things can easily get confusing. For instance, dealing with Win32 COM dlls, plain vanilla Win32 dlls, and ActiveX controls from managed C# all have their own means. An interop assembly can be created for Win32 COM dlls so that it can be referenced from a C# project directly. However, to use regular Win32 dlls from a C# project, you must utilize Platform Invoke. Further, for ActiveX controls you need to generate a wrapper control, which can then be used to reference from you C# project. All these methods are explained in more detail here: http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dv_csref/html/c025b2e0-2357-4c27-8461-118f0090aeff.asp.