VB - ActiveX - DDE

I have developed an ActiveX EXE that creates a DDE connection to another software package. It works fine as a standalone component. However, when I include it in IIS 4, it no longer works, but instead says that it is unable to initiate a DDE conversation. I have tried using the ActiveX EXE directly from the ASP as well as calling it from from an ActiveX DLL from the ASP page (hoping that the indirection would help). In fact it does work in this later manner when the VB Designer is running on the Web Server, but not when VB is not running. Can anyone give me any suggestions?