Thanks. I'm not familiar with .NET.

What I need to do is develop a program (progA) which uses an ActiveX UI component. Was thinking of developing progA in C++ or VB. progA needs to be called from another program (progB) which is not a .NET app. I assumed the easiest way to do this would be to create a stand-alone exe application and shell to it from progB. Yes progA could do a DLL but easier with a separate exe, I think.

So perhaps progA could be .NET as long as progB can shell to it? But then don't I need to be sure that .NET runtime is installed?