ActiveX Controls - Availability & how to list them (1 Viewer)

[ashleedawg]

[I was getting off topic on another thread so I'll finish 'er up here.]

Considering a scenario where in there are 20 users using this database? do we have to install VLC for each user individually ? any alternative to VLC which can play any file ? and that too without installing it on each machine ?

I had assumed this was for a standalone DB, but if not, surely there is an alternative video player that's a standard part of Office? I've also got a Windows Media Player control... is that not on yours either? I know I've never intentionally installed anything specifically related to WMP (since I prefer VLC).

As I've never heard of either of these, I checked in both A2010 & A2016.
I haven't got either of them - but I haven't installed VLC.
So looks like both were added when you installed VLC

I can't imagine that a VLC install would be where I got those Microsoft Controls, plus I installed VLC a year ago and didn't notice those controls until just recently. Hmm... possibly around the same time I changed from a [trial] Office 365 for Home subscription to a Office 365 ProPlus [free since I have a email address associated with a school from a course I took a while back]...

You guys got me wondering what other controls I have that others don't, and vice versa. I like seeing what cool (although often impractical) stuff I can do with them... like a kid in a candy store!

I've been meaning to try to generate a list of installed controls (as opposed to the yucky "Insert Control" dialog). Perhaps I'll check into that and we could compare lists? [Haha like grownup pokemon cards?]

Also, if I have a control that someone doesn't have - but wants - I think I'm allowed to share the DLL/OCX file, especially if I'm distributing an application I authored, and that control is a required part, right?

I tried, but I guess listing "all available ActiveX controls" isn't easily possible. I hoped there was a hidden collection I could enumerate, but closest I found are in C, or else there are limited registry calls one can make from VBA, seeking CLSID entries but I couldn't easily get it to do what I want. The bits of data I need are littered all over the registry, like the mystery flag that identifies which of these 7955 activeX components are the 100-ish actual activeX *controls*.

I generally don't download unknown registry-related utilities, I broke that rule today with ActiveX Helper , which seems handy. If you try it, note the first screen (Load List) has an option at the bottom to "Load only controls" (and save a few minutes) - or else view them all and sort by column headers.

The list is *fairly* close to what shows in Access... but, what's this, now more have shown up?! I think I would have noticed the 22 versions of "Microsoft RDP Client Control". [I've never even used Remote Desktop on this machine... but I have had a suspicion that Trump was spying on me.] I tried to disable and unregister them but it had no effect, but I'll do that in safe mode, just to be sure. Anyhow, that's a tangent of a tangent.

Back on track, I now have an XLS list of my installed controls. I'm not going to post it here but PM me if you wannna comparer or if you need a copy of any of these DLL's like MS Animation, MS Progress Bar etc.

I did just learn that the reason I haven't been able to use events from ActiveX controls is that it apparently has to be done a specific way with a userform -- but new users might want to be reminded that ActiveX controls can be dangerous!