I notice Sam Gentile references a tool for registering managed objects in the COM+ catalog even if they don’t derive from Serviced Component.  Oddly, I have recently read an internal mail thread on a similar customer issue.  The upshot of the mail thread was that if you don’t derive from ServicedComponent, then your COM+ context info won’t get marshaled correctly on remote calls.  Bluntly, this means some stuff will work, and some won’t.  So please continue to derive your managed COM+ objects from ServicedComponents, and understand the risks if you choose not to.

I would have just posted this as a response to Sam’s entry, but he has comments disabled.