> I was talking about the stuff here > http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms233411.aspx. The various metadata > interfaces are using IUnknown which I also took as being part of COM. Also I see > ICorRuntimeHost which I was under the impression is part of the whole .Net universe. > (I'll apologize in advance that that I didn't completely read the whole overviews > about Metadata or what ICorRuntimeHost is used for.)
IUnknown is the "safe/sane subset" of COM also used in DirectX - it's a mechanism for one component to expose multiple versions of an API (one way to avoid DLL hell, although WinSxS is the preferred method now). It has basically nothing to do with COM as it was used in VBX/ActiveX or Office/OLE. COM in it's latter forms (which is also how VPinMame uses it) has been pretty forcibly been deprecated by MS, although of course the APIs will continue to exist for back compatibility.
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