Best Practices? Inter Application Communication

[msnews.microsoft.com]

Ok, I am looking for suggestions here.

I have a .NET (1.1) application and I need to allow a non-.NET application
to communicate with it so they can control my application. The other
application uses VBScript 5.6 and can control COM applications.

Here are my requirements:

1) My application can be run independent of the other application
2) If My application is already running, they need to communicate with it
3) If My application isn't running they need to start it, then communicate
with it
4) They may need to pass a large amount of data (Client Information and
other details) to my application.

What is the "Correct" method for allowing this?

Are there examples or articles on how to accomplish this?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Brien King
br***@classic-soft.com