This astute reference demystifies the underlying complexities of the Component Object Model (COM) -- explaining how to use the significant COM-based capabilities in Visual Basic 6.0 to create multitier solutions that scale for thousands of users. The best-selling first edition of this book has been fully updated to cover COM+ 1.0, the distributed application framework built into Windows 2000. Developers learn how to share resources such as threads, memory, and poolable objects in a COM+ application; exploit transactional programming techniques for high throughput and low response time; port Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) applications to COM+ and Windows 2000; and build robust, secure Web-based solutions.