How To Intall ActiveX in your Vista Operating System

The ActiveX Installer Service is disabled by default (well, it's not even installed). To install it, follow these steps:

1. <!--[if !supportLists]-->Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. <!--[if !supportLists]-->Click Programs. Then, click Turn Windows Features On And Off. A UAC prompt appears.
3. <!--[if !supportLists]-->At the Windows Features dialog, select ActiveX Installer Service check box. Then, click OK.
4. <!--[if !supportLists]-->Restart your computer.
5. <!--[if !supportLists]-->After the computer restarts, you need to set the ActiveX Installer (AxInstSV) service to start automatically. Click Start, right-click Computer, and then click Manage. Expand Services and Applications, and then click Services. Right-click ActiveX Installer (AxInstSV), and then click Properties. Click Startup type, and then click Automatic. Then, click the Start button, and finally click OK.

Now that you've done that, nothing will behave differently. To use it, you must enable the "Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\ActiveX Installer Service\Approved Installation Sites For ActiveX Controls" Group Policy setting and add each URL you want to allow ActiveX controls for. For the value, you can typically just go with "2,2,1,0″.

Here is a complete walkthrough of the installation and configuration of AxIS on Windows Vista RC1 in this video: Start video 100k | 300k

You can watch this video to configure your Vista PC to enable installing of ActiveX.

Have Fun. J