I'm new to the forum. I am a Java developer by trade, however I've done (and still do) a good bit of Visual Basic. I have never done a VB ActiveX control, and I have a few questions so (hopefully) someone smarter than me can guide me in the right direction.

I have written a VB application that "helps" the user install browser plugins/applications that are required to use our main application based on Java applets. This VB app queries the registry and files on the file system to determine if a plugin has been installed and is the correct version. It will tell the user what he/she needs to download, then do the download, and start the installation proceedure.

My boss doesn't like that the user has to initially download and install the VB helper app. He would rather have a web page that could do this. My initial thoughts are to turn this VB app into an ActiveX control and embed it in an HTML page. Here are my questions:

1. Will this simplify the installation? I realize an ActiveX control has to be "installed" on the machine, but my experience shows this to be a much less obtrusive installation proceedure.... can that be true?

2. If I need to make changes to the ActiveX control, how is the "upgrade" process handled? Is it simply a matter of putting the newest version of the control on the web server... meaning it's as seamless as upgrading Java Applets?

3. How do I get past the browser security settings? I can't seem to get a control to run on anyone else's machine unless the browser security is super low. I've tried making the control marked "safe for scripting" (which is how I found this forum), but that didn't have any effect. Maybe I did it wrong. If I sign the control would that work? If so, is there a way to generate your own signature, or do I have to go to a third party vendor (Verisign, etc...)?

Thank you for your help.

kerank