OLE automation

In Microsoft Windows, applications programming, OLE Automation (later renamed by Microsoft to just Automation, although the old term remained with widespread use), is the formal inter-process communication mechanism based on Component Object Model (COM). It provides an infrastructure whereby applications called automation controllers can access and manipulate (i.e. set properties of or call methods on) shared automation objects that are exported by other applications. It supersedes Dynamic Data Exchange, an older mechanism for applications to control one another. As with DDE, in OLE Automation the automation controller is the "client" and the application exporting the automation objects is the "server".
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