Microsoft KB Archive/256217

= INFO: Free Threaded Marshaler Guidelines =

Article ID: 256217

Article Last Modified on 11/17/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft COM+ 2.0 Standard Edition, when used with:
 * Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
 * Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model 1.2

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This article was previously published under Q256217



SUMMARY
This article provides some guidelines that will help you to decide when it is appropriate to use the Free Threaded Marshaler (FTM).



MORE INFORMATION
When an object aggregates the FTM, two things may occur. If an interface from the object is marshaled out-of-process, the FTM uses standard marshaling. If the interface from the object is marshaled within the process (that is, if MSHCTX_INPROC is used), the FTM gives out the raw interface pointer value; thus, it avoids the overhead of proxy and stub and increases the performance.

When To Use the Free Threaded Marshaler
To enhance performance, you can use FTM in the following cases:
 * Use FTM objects to provide sharing opportunities for static data.

You can use the FTM when your Component Object Model (COM) object represents static data or is a wrapper to access that data. When you use the FTM in this way, you enhance your performance for this data cache.
 * Use the FTM when the object does not store state across method calls, for example, with a COM object that exposes utility functions.
 * Use the FTM in out-of-process server components.

Any thread, apartment, or context in the client can use the interface proxy that is received from an out-of-process object that aggregates FTM without marshaling this proxy across an apartment or a context.

However, it is not recommended that you use the FTM for components that are configured in COM+. If you aggregate the FTM, it does not work as expected because COM+ does not call QueryInterface for IMarshal on any configured object; therefore, you must use standard marshaling. Because you configured your component in COM+, you declare that your object has to run in its own context. On the other hand, when you aggregate the FTM, you are programmatically saying that the object must run in the caller's context. COM+ chooses to enforce the former and disallow the latter.

Points To Consider
Consider the following points when you aggregate the FTM:
 * 1) The threading model of the object must not be marked for only one apartment type.

Objects should not be marked "Apartment" or "Free." To aggregate the FTM, be sure that the threading model of the object is marked "Both" in Microsoft Windows NT and Microsoft Windows 98/95 with DCOM support, and "Neutral" in Microsoft Windows 2000.
 * 1) FTM-based objects must be apartment-neutral.

FTM-based objects must ensure that they can be called from any thread in the process. FTM-based objects should not keep raw interface pointers as data members but should instead keep some marshaled form of an interface pointer as a data member. To do this, use the IGlobalInterfaceTable interface.
 * 1) FTM-based objects cannot hold context-relative resources across method calls.

Because FTM-based objects are context-neutral, they have no context of their own; thus, they use their caller's context.
 * 1) * When FTM-based objects perform an operation in-process in their caller's context, the operation is done on behalf of the caller.
 * 2) * When FTM-based objects perform an operation for an out-of-process caller, the operation is done in a default context of an apartment. In Windows 2000, this is the Neutral apartment.

