Question

Like the topic says, can ASP Classic use registration free components? This is on Windows Server 2003. If so, how do I go about doing that?

If not, could anyone please provide some alternatives?

Answer 1

By alternative, I guess you don’t mean components that do require registration? ‘Cause there are loads of those…

A less common way of using COM with ASP that is quite convenient is to use Windows Scripting Components (WSC). From 4GuysFromRolla:

One of the biggest disadvantages of
developing COM components using one of
these high-level languages is the
time-intensive process of altering an
existing COM component. For example,
say that you are developing a COM
component. You add some properties and
methods and start using it on your
site. Now, say that you wanted to add
a new method. After adding this method
you would have to recompile the COM
component, reregister it, and stop and
restart the Web server…

To solve for this annoyance, Microsoft
has created Windows Script Components,
which, as their name implies, are COM
components created with script! These
components can be developed with any
Windows scripting language (VBScript,
JScript, PerlScript, Python, etc.).
Since these components use script, you
can literally cut and paste your ASP
script into one of these scripted
components! Also, you can edit a
Windows Script Component’s code and
the changes are automatically
reflected – no recompiling, no
restarting the Web server, and no
reregistering the component!

For more info, check out these links:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/07zhfkh8(VS.85).aspx
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692823.aspx
• https://web.archive.org/web/20210927201615/http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/050400-1.shtml