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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Internet Data Download Services - read
this section to learn about Microsoft system services for downloading
data from the Internet.
- 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.
- 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.
- '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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- OLE References And Resources
- New to OLE? This page provides additional references to information
about the Microsoft Component Object Model and OLE technologies.
- ISAPI specification - for developing extensions to the Microsoft
Internet Information Server and other HTTP servers that support
the ISAPI interface.
- ISAPI Filter specification - for developing filter extensions
to the Microsoft Internet Information Server and other HTTP servers
that support the ISAPI interface. ISAPI Filter extensions are
used for encryption, compression, authentication, logging, etc.
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- OLE Document Objects (DocObjs)
- specification of interfaces for creating or hosting OLE Document
Objects that can be viewed in arbitrary frames (e.g. web browsers).
- Palette Management for OLE Document Objects
- a short specification of palette management interaction between OLE
Document Objects and their containers.
- Simple Hyperlink Navigation - a subset
of the OLE Hyperlinking specification that allows new or existing
documents and applications to support simple hyperlink navigation.
This specification describes a system API that is supported today and
that will eventually interoperate with the more complete
OLE Hyperlinking architecture.
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The Microsoft ActiveX architecture provides both high-level and low-level
interfaces for downloading data from the Internet.
- URL Moniker - specification
of a new asynchronous moniker which encapsulates locating and
downloading of data or objects from URLs.
- Asynchronous Moniker
- specification of a new class of monikers that allow downloading
or binding to objects asynchronously, without blocking.
- Win32 Internet API - The Microsoft®
Win32® Internet functions provides Win32 applications easy
access to common Internet protocols (HTTP, FTP, Gopher).
- Persistent Cache API - specification
of services that allow applications to cache data in local storage
for future use, such as when data is from a low bandwidth link.
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Microsoft Internet Explorer will support scripting and automation
of its various components using "pluggable" scripting
engines.
- Microsoft ® Visual Basic ® Scripting Edition - a working
description of the lightweight subset of Visual Basic that will
add scripting capabilities to Web pages viewed by
Microsoft Internet Explorer. VBScript interacts with
Microsoft Internet Explorer via OLE Scripting interfaces.
For more information, you can also check out the
VBScript site on www.microsoft.com.
- ActiveX Object Model Overview
- overview of automation interfaces, methods, and properties exposed
by components in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0.
- OLE Scripting provides a standard mechanism
for application authors to add scripting capabilities to their applications.
This technology allows for script vendors to create "pluggable"
scripting engines that can be used in various OLE Scripting applications,
such as Microsoft Internet Explorer.
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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.
-
Inserting multimedia objects into HTML (WD-Object.html) -
HTML extensions to support
insertion of multimedia objects such as ActiveX Controls.
Includes the definition
of the OBJECT, ALIAS, and PARAM elements. Note: the WWW
Consortium recently agreed to rename the INSERT element to be the
OBJECT element. Any HTML content using the old INSERT specification
should change to use the new OBJECT specification.
-
HTML Scripting (WD-script.html) - HTML extensions to support
locally executable scripts such as VBScript. Includes the definition of the SCRIPT
element, as well as extensions to the existing INPUT element for event
handlers.
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.
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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.
- Windows Trust Verification Services
- description of system services that provide a common API
for determining if a specific subject can be trusted,
based on policies defined by a trust administrator.
These general-purpose APIs can be used in many situations, including
verification of the safety and security of code downloaded from the
Internet.
- Software Publishing Trust Provider -
description of a module which supports selected actions under
the Windows Trust Verification Services described above.
This module allows applications (such as web browsers)
to determine whether a software component contains digital
certificates which identify it as being authentic software
released by a publisher trusted on the local user’s system.
- Internet Component Download -
specification of a system service for
retrieval, trust verification, and installation
of COM/OLE components from the Internet. This service is
used by Microsoft Internet Explorer to automatically download
and install code for ActiveX Controls and ActiveX Documents.
The specification provides instructions for authors of ActiveX Controls
or ActiveX Documents to package their products so that they
may be downloaded automatically from web pages.
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- Private Communication Technology (PCT) -
A protocol layered over a reliable network transport protocol (e.g. tcp)
that is designed to provide privacy between two communicating applications
(a client and a server), and to authenticate the server and
(optionally) the client.
- Windows NT Authentication over HTTP -
outlines how to integrate Microsoft's user
authentication protocol into standard HTTP authentication
messages. This is useful for supporting secure browsing
on Intranets based on Windows NT Domain Security and
of the Microsoft Network Internet online service which is
adopting this protocol in its Web services for MSN membership.
- Digital Signatures of PE images -
describes the interfaces added to the Windows system
component IMAGEHLP.DLL used for inserting digital signature material
into PE-format executables (i.e. Win32 EXEs and DLLs), retrieving or
removing these data structures from these images, and performing
a message digest of PE-format images omitting appropriate portions
of the image including the digital signatures themselves.
- Cryptography API -
Questions and answers about the new Cryptography API, including
information on signing cryptography service providers and export
restrictions. (For complete documentation of the Crypto API, see
the most recent Win32 SDK.)
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- WebPost API -
The goal of the WebPost API is to allow authoring tools to post web
pages (files) easily to the user's Internet web site. WebPost API
abstracts the details of how to connect to the Internet Service
Provider (ISP), what protocol to use for copying the files, etc.
- USER LOCATION SERVERS -
server programs that maintain dynamic
information about users and the applications they are running. The
server is similar to a DNS server in that the set of resource
information associated with a particular user is composed of separate
resource records.
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