How do I programmatically determine if active x has been disabled, if an active x control has been installed, and if an active x control has been installed but disabled?

Question

I'm using ASP.NET on the server side and javascript on the client side.

I'm trying to develop some pages that will help the user troubleshoot and I was wondering if there was a way to programmatically determine the following: 1) if active x has been disabled in Internet Explorer 2) if an active x control has been installed 3) if an active x control has been installed but disabled?

For cases 2 and 3, I know that in order to detect that an active x control is installed, you would use the following check in javascript:

function isActiveXControlInstalled(progId, expectedVersion)
{
    var version;
    try
    {
        var instance = new ActiveXObject(progId);
        version = instance.VersionString;
        instance = null;
    }
    catch (e)
    {
       version = null; // Set version to null, since that is an invalid control version, and the check below will always fail.
    }

    return (version >= expectedVersion);
}

However, this function also returns false in the case that the control is installed but disabled. Can these two cases be distinguished?

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

No. I think if it is installed but disabled you won't be able to tell from your application. You might consider changing the wording in your troubleshooting page to "not installed or is disabled".