1 Introduction

The OLE Automation Protocol uses Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) as its transport layer. It provides support for an additional set of types, a late-bound calling mechanism, and type description and discovery. The late-bound calling mechanism is based on dispatch identifiers and a dispatching table that maps the identifiers to specific operations. The dispatch identifiers and the dispatching table are specified by using IDL extensions specified in this document. Type description and discovery are based on a set of IDL extensions and a set of interfaces that are implemented by type library and type description servers.

Sections 1.5, 1.8, 1.9, 2, and 3 of this specification are normative. All other sections and examples in this specification are informative.