ActiveX Deployment

Question

We have used for 8 years an ActiveX created in Delphi and we are now using it on Internet Explorer over the internet (and not on local machine as it was always been the process until here)

As today we use this object in the HTML:

<object id="ActiveX" classid="CLSID:8EC68701-329D-4567-BCB5-9EE4BA43D358" 
        width="14" height="14">
    <param name="tabName" value="AccountPlan">
</object>

My question is, what are the viable methods to deploy an Active X Control over HTTP/S, what parameters should I need to append to tell where to find it (http url) and download a new one if newer is available?

I got into this article from MSDN Library but refers to VB5.0 and it's dated 1997 ... Just wanna know what can I do now, as probably the tools evolved since last century

All help is appreciated,

Thank you.

Answer 1

I think Packaging ActiveX Controls article will help you. For correct installation from the web you need to append only codebase parameter:

<object id="ActiveX" classid="CLSID:8EC68701-329D-4567-BCB5-9EE4BA43D358" codebase="PackedControl.cab#version=1,0,0,1"
        width="14" height="14">
    <param name="tabName" value="AccountPlan">
</object>

Don’t forget to add version in order to be possible to update the control later through the web too.

The last features from this century I can remember are:

1. Non-admin control installation – AX installation without admin privileges.
2. The ActiveX Installer Service – administrative tool for installing inside intranet.