DCOM (Distributed Components Object Model) is an extension of COM, which defines how components and their clients interact. Because the plug-ins were designed with the COM/DCOM structure, they use DCOM when creating communication links between components and clients on separate machines. As a result, it is required to configure DCOM for the plug-ins to successfully communicate.
If you are utilizing any of the plug-ins that require a network connection between the server control program and the plug-in, then you will need to configure DCOM.
Before configuring DCOM, make sure that you have registered each of the SCP's that are going to be used on both the PRISM server and the remote servers.
To configure DCOM, take the following steps:
1. Run the DCOM configuration program.
To launch the DCOM configuration program, go to StartàRun from your Desktop. Open the file "dcomcnfg" by typing it into the space provided and click OK.
Run DCOM configuration
2. Select the application.
The Distributed COM Configuration Properties window appears, defaulted to the Applications tab. All applications in the Windows Registry appear on this tab. Select the application that corresponds to the particular plug-in that you will be using. For our example, let’s select the PRISM SCP for Web Service, which corresponds to the SCPWeb.exe plug-in.
Select the application in dcomconfig
To select the application, highlight it, then click properties. This will launch the Properties box for the application, defaulted to the General tab.
3. Edit the Location tab.
Click the Location tab. The plug-in application can auto-detect the necessary settings, so it is usually not necessary to edit anything here. Just make sure that the Run Application On This Computer option is check-marked.
Run Application On This Machine
4. Edit the Security tab.
Move on to the Security tab. Change each of the options to use custom settings instead of the default settings.
Custom Security Settings
· Access permissions: Access permissions determine which clients have the right to connect to a running object. Under the Access Permissions section click the Edit button to customize the access permissions. This will launch the Registry Access Permissions window. You will want to add a user to give proper security access to this application. In our example, we have added the user Everyone. Normally, you would not use the Everyone account since this may pose a security risk, but we have added this account for demonstrative purposes.
Give security access
· Launch permissions: Launch permissions, unlike access permissions, determine which clients can launch the application as a server process on the remote machine. Under the Launch Permissions section, repeat the above steps to give a user launch permissions.
· Configuration permissions: Under the Configuration Permissions section, click the Edit button. This will launch the Registry Key Permissions window. You will want to add a User and give it Full Control permissions. In our example, we have added the account Everyone. Again, you would not normally use this account since it poses a security risk.
Configure permissions
4. Edit the Identity tab
Click the Identity tab. Make sure that the Interactive User is selected.
5. Edit the Endpoints tab
Click OK to exit.
