Starting a Python COM server from vb?

[Robert M. Emmons]

> How do I ensure that the service is registered?  Does this need to
> happen after every bootup?

I recommend highly the book:  Python Programming on Win32 by Mark 
Hammond and Andy Robinson ISBN: 1-56592-621-8.  This should anwser many 
of your questions regarding Python and windows.  They talk both about 
COM/ACTIVEX and about windows Servicies.

The short answer to your question--I think it really depends on what you 
want.  If you really want to run a "Service" in the windows sense, then 
yes you probably have to launch this at boot time.  Generally Servicies 
or Daemons are just programs that run in the background.  There is a way 
to run these at startup on windows.  I can't remember exactly how -- I'm 
thinking there is a "Servicies" control panel(???)

On the other hand if your talking about COM/ActiveX Servers that is a 
totally different thing.  These are not Servicies.  There is a standard 
way of writing these in Python using the win-32all package -- i.e. the 
python windows extnesions.  It is to complicated for me to explain 
directly here...though it is not difficult.  You need the book or 
another reference in front of you.  Basically to setup a server you have 
to add some special attributes to the classes that you want to register, 
then some code that does the registration.  The registration is 
peristant.  You put your program in some fixed location and then 
register it once and it's good always.  I've done this to write nice 
little utilities to call from VBA in Excel.  Works nice.

The book I referenced by the way covers both COM/ActiveX and Servicies 
to regarless of your interest it should have some information.

Rob