Inside COM+ Base Services examines many aspects of Microsoft"s Component Object Model+ in depth. The book provides a great deal of information well-suited to experienced C++ programmers, as well as thorough explanations and useful code examples. As with most books from Microsoft Press, this volume comes with a well-organized CD-ROM that contains complete source code for the examples presented in the book. (Most of the examples are actually code fragments, but the CD-ROM contains the code in its entirety.) One very nice feature of the CD-ROM is that it includes the contents of the book in Microsoft Electronic Book format, which makes searching for passages and copying code fragments very easy. Not limited to the C++ audience only, the book presents COM+ implementations in Visual Basic and J++ too. It should be mentioned that this book targets a lot of information at those who know C++ and have some background with the Windows API (and preferably some with OLE or COM.) For those with only a Visual Basic background or who want an overview, this book is probably too C++-specific. Also keep in mind that this book is an update of Inside Distributed COM. Several topics that are new to COM+, such as message queuing and transactions, are not covered in this book (the next book in the series, Inside COM+ Component Services, due out in spring 2000, might cover these topics). Overall, if you are a C++ programmer, are using the Windows API, and are interested in learning about DCOM and COM+, this book provides clear explanations, useful programs and code fragments, and a lot of detailed examples. --John Keogh Topics covered: Introduction to component software; interfaces; CLSIDs; GUIDs; registering components; templates; interfaces; references and reference counting; v-tables; implementing COM+ with Java and Visual Basic; type libraries; threads and apartments; automation; errors, exceptions, and error handling; connection points; type information; persistence and structured storage; naming and monikers; DLL surrogates; location transparency; DCOM; standard and custom marshalling; executable components and in-process components; interprocess communication; Interface Definition Language; asynchronous calls; COM+ security, including the COM+ security model, platform-independent security, and configuring security; cloaking; COM+ networking; remote activation; object references; and RPCs.