There are two approaches to incorporate an ActiveX control into a Dot Net environment.
The first approach involves adding the control into a form:
Under
[tools], please select "Add/Remove Toolbox Items..." or "Choose Toolbox
Items..." to view the list of COM components in order to add the active
X control to the tool box. On the form view, drag the active X control
from the toolbox that was added previously. By doing so, both the
Ax[OCX name]Lib and [OCX name]Lib references will be created.
Furthermore, the location of the resources, Interop.[OCX name]Lib.DLL
and Ax[OCX name]Lib.DLL, should be under either the release or debug
folders, depending on the configuration you are running. These files
will be generated into the appropriate folder once you switch the build
configuration if the file is not found as long as the OCX is registered.
Once the interop references have been added, all methods and events
will become available to the application. If the OCX is not available,
please register the control as follows:
- Select [Start Menu]
- Select [Run]
- Type [regsvr32 "[drive]:\[full path]\[OCX name].ocx"] and press [enter]
- You'll see a message indicating that the registration succeeded.
The
second approach is to create the interop files, mentioned above,
manually and add them to the project without the use of forms:

Both
the Ax[OCX name]Lib and [OCX name]Lib references must be created
manually by using Aximp.exe; Aximp.exe is found in the Visual Studio
folder:
aximp /out:[Full path to store interop files]\Ax[OCX name]Lib.dll [full path to OCX]\[file name].ocx
1. Add the [activeXControl name]Lib.dll and Ax[activeXControl name]Lib.dll files to the project as follows:
- Select 'Project'.
- Select 'Add Reference'.
- Under the '.Net' tab, select 'System.Windows.Forms.dll' if not added by default.
- Browse to the folder containing the interop DLL files created previously and add them to the project as well.
2. Create an object of type [activeXControl name] in the application as follows:
VB. Net:
- Dim OCXVar As New Ax[activeXControl]Lib.Ax[OCX name]
- OCXVar.CreateControl()
C#:
- Ax[activeXControl]Lib.[OCX name] OCXVar = new Ax[activeXControl]Lib.Ax[OCX name]();
- OCXVar.CreateControl();

Please note that the call to CreateControl is imperative in order to initialize the control before usage.