When working with COM+ components in Windows environments, PowerShell provides several powerful approaches through both native cmdlets and COM object access. The COM+ Admin library (comadmin.dll) exposes the necessary interfaces we can leverage programmatically.

To verify if a COM+ application exists:

$comAdmin = New-Object -comobject COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog
$apps = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Applications")
$apps.Populate()
$targetApp = "MyCOMApp"
$appExists = $apps | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $targetApp } | Select-Object -First 1

if ($appExists) {
    Write-Host "$targetApp is registered"
} else {
    Write-Host "$targetApp not found"
}

Starting and stopping applications requires accessing the application's IsEnabled property:

# Stop application
$app = $apps | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $targetApp } | Select-Object -First 1
$app.Value("IsEnabled") = $false
$apps.SaveChanges()

# Start application
$app.Value("IsEnabled") = $true
$apps.SaveChanges()

For registration operations, we use the InstallApplication and ShutdownApplication methods:

# Install from MSI
$comAdmin.InstallApplication("C:\path\to\application.msi")

# Uninstall by name
$comAdmin.ShutdownApplication($targetApp)

While PowerShell doesn't include native COM+ cmdlets, we can create reusable functions:

function Get-COMApplication {
    param([string]$Name)
    $comAdmin = New-Object -comobject COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog
    $apps = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Applications")
    $apps.Populate()
    if ($Name) {
        $apps | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $Name }
    } else {
        $apps
    }
}

function Start-COMApplication {
    param([string]$Name)
    $app = Get-COMApplication -Name $Name
    $app.Value("IsEnabled") = $true
    $app.Collection.SaveChanges()
}

• Always run PowerShell as Administrator when modifying COM+ settings
• Changes made programmatically may require component restarts
• For production environments, consider implementing error handling and logging
• The COMAdminCatalog object supports many other useful methods like GetApplications, ExportApplication, and ImportComponent

COM+ (Component Services) administration through PowerShell is often needed for enterprise application management. While PowerShell doesn't include native COM+ cmdlets, we can leverage COM automation through the COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog object to perform all necessary operations.

First, let's create a COMAdminCatalog object instance:

$comAdmin = New-Object -ComObject "COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog"
$applications = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Applications")
$applications.Populate()

To check if a COM+ application is installed:

function Test-COMPlusApplication {
    param([string]$appName)
    
    $comAdmin = New-Object -ComObject "COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog"
    $apps = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Applications")
    $apps.Populate()
    
    return ($apps | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $appName }).Count -gt 0
}

# Usage:
Test-COMPlusApplication -appName "MyCOMApp"

Control COM+ application state with these functions:

function Start-COMPlusApplication {
    param([string]$appName)
    
    $comAdmin = New-Object -ComObject "COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog"
    $apps = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Applications")
    $apps.Populate()
    
    $app = $apps | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $appName }
    if ($app) {
        $app.Value("IsEnabled") = $true
        $apps.SaveChanges()
    }
}

function Stop-COMPlusApplication {
    param([string]$appName)
    
    $comAdmin = New-Object -ComObject "COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog"
    $apps = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Applications")
    $apps.Populate()
    
    $app = $apps | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $appName }
    if ($app) {
        $app.Value("IsEnabled") = $false
        $apps.SaveChanges()
    }
}

For application registration and removal:

function Install-COMPlusApplication {
    param(
        [string]$appName,
        [string]$dllPath,
        [string]$appDescription = ""
    )
    
    $comAdmin = New-Object -ComObject "COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog"
    
    # Create new application
    $apps = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Applications")
    $apps.Populate()
    
    $newApp = $apps.Add()
    $newApp.Value("Name") = $appName
    $newApp.Value("Description") = $appDescription
    $apps.SaveChanges()
    
    # Install components
    $appKey = ($apps | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $appName }).Key
    $components = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Components", $appKey)
    $components.Populate()
    
    $comAdmin.InstallComponent($appKey, $dllPath, "", "")
    $components.SaveChanges()
}

function Uninstall-COMPlusApplication {
    param([string]$appName)
    
    $comAdmin = New-Object -ComObject "COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog"
    $apps = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Applications")
    $apps.Populate()
    
    $app = $apps | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $appName }
    if ($app) {
        $apps.Remove($app.Index)
        $apps.SaveChanges()
    }
}

For more complex scenarios, you can extend these basic functions:

function Get-COMPlusApplicationDetails {
    param([string]$appName)
    
    $comAdmin = New-Object -ComObject "COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog"
    $apps = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Applications")
    $apps.Populate()
    
    $app = $apps | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $appName }
    if ($app) {
        $props = @{}
        foreach ($property in $app.ValueNames) {
            $props[$property] = $app.Value($property)
        }
        return [PSCustomObject]$props
    }
}

function Set-COMPlusApplicationProperty {
    param(
        [string]$appName,
        [string]$propertyName,
        [object]$propertyValue
    )
    
    $comAdmin = New-Object -ComObject "COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog"
    $apps = $comAdmin.GetCollection("Applications")
    $apps.Populate()
    
    $app = $apps | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $appName }
    if ($app) {
        $app.Value($propertyName) = $propertyValue
        $apps.SaveChanges()
    }
}