make a LabVIEW interop dll interfaces "COM visible"

[bbean]

For the project I'm working on we created a LabVIEW build spec to create an interop dll that exports interfaces for several of our VI's. When we give the interop dll to 3rd parties that need to call the dll, they claim that they need to create a "wrapper dll" to call our interop.dll. They indicate that the exported interfaces are "static" and that they can't call the interopdll directly. They were also asking if there a way to make the interfaces of an interop dll created in LabVIEW "COM Visible"?

Are we building the interop dll improperly in LabVIEW? Do we need to embed a manifest file for them to call the interop dll directly?

Is it possible that they cannot call the dll directly because they forgot to include the reference to the NationalInstruments.LabVIEW.Interop.dll?

Sorry for the barrage of questions. This is the first time I've worked with interop dll's in LabVIEW

[Mark Smith]

For the project I'm working on we created a LabVIEW build spec to create an interop dll that exports interfaces for several of our VI's. When we give the interop dll to 3rd parties that need to call the dll, they claim that they need to create a "wrapper dll" to call our interop.dll. They indicate that the exported interfaces are "static" and that they can't call the interopdll directly. They were also asking if there a way to make the interfaces of an interop dll created in LabVIEW "COM Visible"?

Are we building the interop dll improperly in LabVIEW? Do we need to embed a manifest file for them to call the interop dll directly?

Is it possible that they cannot call the dll directly because they forgot to include the reference to the NationalInstruments.LabVIEW.Interop.dll?

Sorry for the barrage of questions. This is the first time I've worked with interop dll's in LabVIEW

I can't imagine why one couldn't call a static method from a .NET assembly from any .NET language. I'm wondering from the questions you ask if the wrapper dll your customers write is a COM wrapper, since no, you can't just register a .NET assembly as a COM object and have it show up through an ActiveX type interface. So maybe they want to call the .NET DLL from an unmanaged context (C++ maybe?). You can, it appears, make your .NET DLL COM Visible (see "Exposing .NET Framework Objects to COM", http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zsfww439.aspx), but not directly from LabVIEW as far as I can tell. You would have to do the work explained in the link above using Visual Studio or such.

Alternately, you can build a LabVIEW exe as an ActiveX server and that will show up as a registered COM component, but that's a whole 'nuther can of worms. It works, but it ain't pretty.

[bbean]

I can't imagine why one couldn't call a static method from a .NET assembly from any .NET language. I'm wondering from the questions you ask if the wrapper dll your customers write is a COM wrapper, since no, you can't just register a .NET assembly as a COM object and have it show up through an ActiveX type interface. So maybe they want to call the .NET DLL from an unmanaged context (C++ maybe?).

I think you hit the nail on the head here. After pestering the customer, it turns out they are calling from an unmanaged Hamilton interface

You can, it appears, make your .NET DLL COM Visible (see "Exposing .NET Framework Objects to COM", http://msdn.microsof...y/zsfww439.aspx),

Interesting I'll have to check this out

Alternately, you can build a LabVIEW exe as an ActiveX server and that will show up as a registered COM component, but that's a whole 'nuther can of worms. It works, but it ain't pretty.

Not going there at this point

Thanks for your help