OCX auto sleep/timeout problem

Good afternoon,

I have a .ocx written in VB6 which communicates with a C program running in the background. The ocx gets called and launches the C program (on first launch), and it can not be displayed when another graphic is called on top of it.

My problem is that after a period of time if the ocx isn't in the foreground/displayed it will in essence kind of turn off or sleep. I assume that this is some standard feature?

Is there anyway I can make the ocx active always?

Any guidance here would save my life!

Cheers