in my option I tend to keep well away from OCX. as when you have any new updates to the OCX you need to register them agian. which in my option is very time comsumeing. I not tryed ActiveX tho pages my self. but once I did read that you are right you do need to sign the control. there is a tool for this on the Visual Studio 6 cd not sure what it's called now but it is there.

Have you though along the lines of ASP if this is for a webapp. you chould then use that to access the Registry to check for updates.

anyway good luck