BackColor of ActiveX Controls

I am resizing a Control at runtime (basically creating a custom combobox). Unfortunately I need to make the background of the control transparent (so when I resize it certain sections of the control do not overlap other controls). The backstyle property does not seem to make a blind bit of difference if I set it to transparent when on a panel - Any ideas???

The alternative is to change the shape of the control to something other than a rectangle - any ideas on this either

for weird shapes, u use:

VB Code:

Declare Function CombineRgn Lib "gdi32" Alias "CombineRgn" (ByVal hDestRgn As Long, ByVal hSrcRgn1 As Long, ByVal hSrcRgn2 As Long, ByVal nCombineMode As Long) As Long
Declare Function CreateRoundRectRgn Lib "gdi32" Alias "CreateRoundRectRgn" (ByVal X1 As Long, ByVal Y1 As Long, ByVal X2 As Long, ByVal Y2 As Long, ByVal X3 As Long, ByVal Y3 As Long) As Long
Declare Function CreateRectRgnIndirect Lib "gdi32" Alias "CreateRectRgnIndirect" (lpRect As RECT) As Long
Declare Function CreateRoundRectRgn Lib "gdi32" Alias "CreateRoundRectRgn" (ByVal X1 As Long, ByVal Y1 As Long, ByVal X2 As Long, ByVal Y2 As Long, ByVal X3 As Long, ByVal Y3 As Long) As Long
Declare Function CreateRectRgn Lib "gdi32" Alias "CreateRectRgn" (ByVal X1 As Long, ByVal Y1 As Long, ByVal X2 As Long, ByVal Y2 As Long) As Long
Declare Function CreateEllipticRgn Lib "gdi32" Alias "CreateEllipticRgn" (ByVal X1 As Long, ByVal Y1 As Long, ByVal X2 As Long, ByVal Y2 As Long) As Long
Declare Function CreateEllipticRgnIndirect Lib "gdi32" Alias "CreateEllipticRgnIndirect" (lpRect As Rect) As Long
Declare Function CreatePolygonRgn Lib "gdi32" Alias "CreatePolygonRgn" (lpPoint As POINTAPI, ByVal nCount As Long, ByVal nPolyFillMode As Long) As Long
Declare Function CreatePolyPolygonRgn Lib "gdi32" Alias "CreatePolyPolygonRgn" (lpPoint As POINTAPI, lpPolyCounts As Long, ByVal nCount As Long, ByVal nPolyFillMode As Long) As Long
 
 
'to set the window's region
Declare Function SetWindowRgn Lib "user32" Alias "SetWindowRgn" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal hRgn As Long, ByVal bRedraw As Boolean) As Long