I don't exactly know. I believe a dll has to meet the ActiveX standards for you to reference it from your project. Remember you can't load the windows dll's either. If you want to use functions from those dll's you have to declare them first. I guess that's the way it works with all none ActiveX dll's. But again, I don't know the details.

I didn't even know you could still buy the full 4.5 version.
Last year they gave away 6.0 and there on version 8.0 right now.

I don't know about version 4.5 but the 7.0 version I'm using has it's objects in CRAXDRT.dll. This one you can reference directly from VB.

Well, that's three times 'I don't know' in one reply, I'm such a help !!!