Registration-free COM articles on MSDN
I played around with Registration-Free COM for quite a while before I truly grokked it. Today, I ran across these Walk Through style articles on MSDN by Steve White that do a good job of explaining the basics in a step-by-step manner:
Registration-Free Activation of .NET-Based Components: A Walkthrough
Registration-Free Activation of COM Components: A Walkthrough
Also, it looks like he has another one in the works titled "Registration-Free COM in Web Applications: A Walkthrough".