Internet Development Technologies

Microsoft ActiveX (TM) Development Kit

Last Updated March 11, 1996

The Microsoft ActiveX (TM) Development Kit includes a variety of technologies that Microsoft is introducing to facilitate development of Internet applications and content. One major technology included here is the the ActiveX (tm) technologies that comprise the Microsoft Internet client platform. This new ActiveX Internet client technology will first appear in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0. Another new technology is ISAPI, the Internet Server API, which allows webmasters and developers to easily extend Web servers in a fast and scalable manner.

The public Microsoft web site (http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/default.htm) contains all of the publicly released versions of these specifications. Please visit this site to find more about providing feedback and receiving support for the Microsoft ActiveX Development Kit.


Note: since the 12/6 release of the Microsoft ActiveX Development Kit, many of the documents below have changed in response to feedback from customers and partners. Many of these documents are still preliminary specifications that are subject to further change as we receive more feedback from developers and partners.

Contents:

  1. Internet Server API (ISAPI) - read this section to learn how to write server-side scripts and filters to extend the capabilities of Microsoft Internet Information Servers and other ISAPI Web servers.
  2. ActiveX Controls - read this section to learn about ActiveX Controls, Microsoft's extensible solution for creating objects that can be inserted universally in web pages, Visual Basic applications, and various other OLE-enabled documents and applications.
  3. ActiveX Documents - read this section to understand how to create new document viewers that can be hosted from various OLE Document Object containers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer.
  4. Internet Data Download Services - read this section to learn about Microsoft system services for downloading data from the Internet.
  5. Scripting Services - this section describes how to use Microsoft ® Visual Basic ® Scripting Edition or other scripting languages to add interactive action to web pages through OLE Automation. It also describes how a script vendor can write a script engine that plugs into the Microsoft Internet Explorer and other OLE Scripting-enabled applications.
  6. HTML Standards for Active Content - this section contains working drafts for HTML extensions being designed in cooperation with the W3C consoritium. These extensions will support the use of ActiveX Controls and VBScript within web pages.
  7. 'Safe' Code Download and Verification - this section provides specifications of new system services for automatic download, trust verification, and installation of code from the Internet.
  8. Security Services - this section describes the Private Communication Technology (PCT) protcol, Windows NT authentication over HTTP, the new functions in imagehlp to support code signatures, and answers about the new Cryptography API.
  9. Miscellaneous information - this section describes an easy to use interface for posting pages to web servers, and a dynamic method for locating users on the network.
  10. Coming Soon... - Specifications of upcoming technology for your review. This includes documentation describing system support for the PICS content-ratings standard, palette management in Microsoft Internet Explorer, and some new OLE integration technologies (Hyperlinking, Component Categories, and Asynchronous Storage).
  11. OLE References And Resources - New to OLE? This page provides additional references to information about the Microsoft Component Object Model and OLE technologies.

Internet Server API (ISAPI)

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ActiveX Controls

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ActiveX Documents

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Internet Data Download Services

The Microsoft ActiveX architecture provides both high-level and low-level interfaces for downloading data from the Internet.

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Scripting Services

Microsoft Internet Explorer will support scripting and automation of its various components using "pluggable" scripting engines.

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HTML Standards for Active Content

Microsoft is working with the WWW Consortium to help extend the HTML standard to support insertion of objects or scripts into HTML pages. The two documents listed below are working drafts of the W3C. Included here are the versions of the drafts that were the most current when the Microsoft ActiveX (TM) Development Kit was produced. It is important to note that these documents are Working Drafts and are subject to change.

Recent versions of these two documents are also available on the W3C web server. Although the documents below are the latest web-posted versions on the W3C server. They may still be slightly older than the drafts listed above. You should compare dates to see which is newer. Back to table of contents

'Safe' Code Download and Verification

Security from 'untrusted' code is an important issue on the Internet. This section describes a trust verification infrastructure and new system services that will help address the code security problem. These new services allow developers to digitally sign their code so that users may verify whether or not code downloaded from the Internet has originated from a trusted source.

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Security Services

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Miscellaneous information

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