This book teaches COM programming to Delphi 4 and 5 programmers. Microsoft COM is prevalent throughout Windows operating systems-95, 98, NT-and is rapidly becoming the programming framework of choice. To build applications which interface with Windows systems, programmers must understand and learn to use COM. This book includes coverage of DCOM, Microsoft"s distributed architecture that is based on COM. It also covers the latest developments in Delphi 5. Typical real-world scenarios, such as Windows Shell programming, automating Microsoft Agent, and creating and using ActiveX controls, are explored. Discussion of each topic is illustrated with detailed examples.