How do I use a COM DLL with LoadLibrary in C++

Question

First, COM is like black magic for me. But I need to use COM dll in one project I\'m working on.

So, I have a DLL I am developing and I need some functionalities tha

Answer 1

You do not directly use LoadLibrary() with a COM library. CoCreateInstance() will call this function if it's not already, and then new an instance of the class you implemented in the library onto the heap and finally return to you a raw pointer to that object. Of course, it could fail during the process, and thus some mechanism for you to check the status like HRESULT.

For simplicity of using it, you can think of a COM library as a common DLL with 1) some predefined entry(main) function, 2) you have to call some predefined function like CoCreateInstance() to enter it, and accept that it's like that because it has to.