Issues in installing COM + Component using PowerShell script - windows

Question

I'm trying to install COM + Component using powershell. But I'm getting following error.
Unable to find type [some.dll]. Make sure that the assembly that contains this
type is loaded.
+ $comAdmin.InstallComponent("test", [some.dll]);
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (COMITSServer.dll:TypeName) [], Runtime
Exception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : TypeNotFound
and here is my powershell script:
Install COM + Components
$comAdmin = New-Object -comobject COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog;
$comAdmin.InstallComponent("some", [some.dll]);
#if an exception occurs in installing COM+ then display the message below
if (!$?)
{
Write-Host "Unable to Install the COM+ Component. Aborting..."
exit -1
}
My powershell version is 4.0
Can someone please help me on this.
Thank you.

Answer 1

Square brackets in PowerShell indicate a type, like [string] or [int32] or [System.Array] or [System.Math]. The error message is complaining because you're telling PowerShell that COMITSServer.dll is a registered and loaded data type.
Additionally, the InstallComponent method of COMAdminCatalog appears to me to have four arguments, not two. You should be able to confirm that by looking at the definition, but I don't know if v2.0 supports doing it like this:
PS U:\> $comAdmin = New-Object -comobject COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog
PS U:\> $comAdmin | gm | where { $_.Name -eq 'InstallComponent' }
TypeName: System.__ComObject#{790c6e0b-9194-4cc9-9426-a48a63185696}
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
InstallComponent Method void InstallComponent (string, string, string, string)
As such, I would try this:
$comAdmin.InstallComponent("ITSServerOO2", "COMITSServer.dll", "", "");
That appears to be how the VB code here calls the same method:
' Open a session with the catalog.
' Instantiate a COMAdminCatalog object.
Dim objCatalog As COMAdminCatalog
Set objCatalog = CreateObject("COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog")
[...]
' Install components into the application.
' Use the InstallComponent method on COMAdminCatalog.
' In this case, the last two parameters are passed as empty strings.
objCatalog.InstallComponent "MyHomeZoo","MyZoo.DLL","",""
Here is the class definition of that function, I believe, athough I'm not familiar enough with COM+ to know if COMAdminCatalog and ICOMAdminCatalog are the same.

Answer 2

This is an answer to the question about the 0x80110401 HRESULT. (BTW, follow up questions should be answered in a new post on SO, not in the comments of an existing question). This allows other people to find answers when they have the same question.
Documentation for ICOMAdminCatalog::InstallComponent. As the documentation explains the first parameter is GUID, the second is the DLL being registered. The third parameter (typelib) and fourth (proxy stub DLL) are optional and can be specified as an empty string.
"test" is not a valid GUID. Note that a GUID is a distinct .NET type (System.Guid). However the documentation calls for a BSTR which would translate into a System.String. To get a new GUID as a string use this: [Guid]::NewGuid().toString().
Note that GUIDs for COM+ components are "well known" values that are used by both the COM servers implementing an interface(s) and by clients that are consuming the interface(s) from a COM server. So normally you wouldn't want to generate a new GUID when registering a COM server, but use the one the developer created when the COM server was developed. However if you don't know what the correct GUID to use is, then generating a new GUID will at least allow you to make progress in developing your script.
This may or may not fix the problem causing the 0x80110401, but it will definitely fix a problem you'll run into sooner or later.