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HOW TO BYPASS the NEW Microsoft IE ActiveX "Activation" problem (via MSDN)

msdn.microsoft.com — If you're a web developer who's site uses interactive Flash or Java Applets, you'll want to read this... Just because Microsoft lost the patent suit, doesn't mean you, or your users need to suffer the consequences... Dynamically creating your OBJECT, APPLET, & EMBED tags via JavaScript will bypass Activation Requirement.

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  • BryanTheCrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The article also lists the DHTML events that are blocked while ActiveX controls are inactive...
  • thatguy2g, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, that's easy enough...
  • cgallant, on 10/12/2007, -12/+20This helps a great deal. Now if they could only post a work-around to fix the whole "sucking" problem IE has...
    • mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -11/+23there is no cure, but you can treat it with firefox
  • yuutomo, on 10/12/2007, -13/+10cgallant, there's been a fix for that issue. it's called Firefox, they said the dispute only affect Internet Explorer only.
    • SupaDawg, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12unfortunatly firefox isn't a viable fix until they can become the majority. From a design standpoint it is still of paramount importance to ensure that your site works with internet explorer, as IE is still the defacto standard (being the majority).

      IE might suck in many many ways, but devs need to learn how to live with it if they respect their traffic.
    • Herolint, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@ SupaDawg

      I totally disagree with you on this one. I think the only way to push positive changes in IE is for developers to purposely not stoop down to IEs low level of suck.

      If enough developers did that, people would start abandoning IE and perhaps Microsoft would actually make it decent. As long as everybody is bending over backwards to support the crap that is IE, Microsoft has no incentive to improve it. At least that is my point of view.
  • ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -24/+22I like Firefox. I like it a lot. But the fact of the matter is the ONLY reason I'm using Firefox is because IE is, for the time being, targeted far more often with malware and viruses.

    I would jump back to IE in a heartbeat if I could be sure I wouldn't fall victim to these threats. IE 7 for Vista seems to be my answer. Because it runs in a protected sandbox of sorts, regardless of the privileges of my current user I will be protected even if there is a flaw in IE.

    I will gladly dump the buggy memory hog that is Firefox once IE 7 / Vista hits the streets.

    Oh, and by the way, the patent issue that forced Microsoft to change IE affects ALL BROWSERS. It's just a matter of time before they are hit as well.
    • ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -10/+10I see... say something bad about Firefox and get modded down. Gotcha.
    • NiLeS, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I somewhat agree with you - IE can be nice, and should be getting better.

      However, have you looked at firefox lately? A lot of memory issues have been fixed.
  • automagically, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I don't get it. Are they saying I can't just embed my Flash anymore? Because of some lawsuit?
    • mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4that's what im wondering, how exactly does this affect us? maybe someone can explain..
    • isoprophlex, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Yea If thats the real story, how come no one will ***** post that. Yawn digg sucks now.
  • xijio, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Why do you yell in the article title, this isn't the AOL 13 years single and looking channel.
  • SCARECR0W, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2yep... this is old news to anyone who is a professional.

    This is not really a solution though, as it still requires for every use of flash on the web, everywhere... to be altered. This is putting the impedance on the developers and not MS, so they can care less about this impact.

    Anyways.. no digg.. this is old news which doesn't amount to squat and is something that all web devs should already know anyways.
    • BryanTheCrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Should... but don't. Just browse around for a bit and you'll see.... Tons of sites still haven't updated their code.

      And I agree, it's a pain in the ass for us developers. Especially for anyone who wants to support javascript to java communication in Opera... For some reason Opera won't let you call a public method on an applet if it was dynamically instantiated. It has to be embedded in the html. The rest of the applet will work, but it's public methods are inaccessible from JavaScript.
  • suppazone, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6what the f*** is up with MS? Coding to make IE up to date with modern browser is hard enough already. Man life as a webprogrammer would be so much easier without IE.
    • barrys, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2WWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I hate IE WWWAAAAAAAAAAAAA
      Quit cryin.
  • isoprophlex, on 10/12/2007, -15/+4Don't bad mouth MS here, the fanboys will give u a thumbs down on your comment.
  • bab7880, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2So how exactly can a bum like me disable the new WGA?
  • Devilboy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5This is not Microsoft's fault. This is another useless submarine patent company screwing us all.
  • Skrolnik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7And the sad thing is, those annoying banner ads that start talking to you the instant you roll over them, the ones that mercifully have been silenced by Microsoft's update, will probably be the very first to adopt the new coding to work the way they did last week.
  • yuutomo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Supadawg, well then you're the minority major institutions are making their sites easier to use since Firefox doesn't take as much coding to make things work, I recoded my site and in Fireofx it looks fantastic, this is another sign Bill should have stuck to just making a stable OS, and left the email and browser to those that care enough.
  • sonthiar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5people still use activex?
    • cryptoknight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1how do you think the mshtml (ajax), flash, java, real player and whatever plugins/ functionality work? they are all just active-x controlls that are loaded / unloaded as needed by the browser.
  • rakslice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Is the status of the patent still in limbo? I haven't heard anything about it recently.
  • ericpp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Kinda weird that they won't let you use the embed/object tag directly, but it's alright if you inject it using javascript...
    • BryanTheCrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1By dynamicaly creating it using javascript, your not putting it in the "hypertext document" as their patent requires. Hence it's a legal work-around. Still... it's ***** that software patents are even allowed. Copyright protection should be enough....
  • tensafefrogs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0There's already a few pre-pacakged javascripts that make this even easier:

    http://blog.deconcept.com/flashobject/
    • BryanTheCrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, but FlashObject is still kinda buggy & doesn't allow for lower-version down-grades. I've written my own flash & java embedding javascript objects that work in all browsers, and allow for a full suit of pretty much any fall-back method you'd want based on the user's plugin version. For example, you might have a Flash 8 version of an app that takes advantage of all the new filters, but would still want to support Flash 7 / 6 users. My object automates falling-back to a lower-version, & even provides a way to automatically push the latest version onto the client.

      I'm writing a tutorial on it and will post it & it's source on digg once it's done for anyone who might find it useful.
  • al4444, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0AcrtiveX is terrible in web
    • BryanTheCrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yet another "ActiveX sucks" fanboy speaking out of ignorance.

      ALL plugins for IE are ActiveX Controls. As someone mentioned above, this includes Flash, Java, Windows Media Player, Quicktime, Real Player, Acrobat Reader, Shockwave, WebEx, Microsoft Live Meeting, Windows Update, Office on the Web, and several other very useful, and non-intrusive plugins.
  • therippa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wrote a script that fixes the problem without having to re-write code. Check it out here: http://therippa.blogspot.com/2006/03/activateactivex.html
  • Benjaminsen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0And here is a way to do it without having to include an external script:
    http://parentnode.org/javascript/inline-activex-object-activation-work-around/
  • Orontes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hello,

    Try my solution to activate objects in Html pages.
    Download: http://www.orontesprojects.com/activeobj/instobj.exe

    Version 1.03 works with:

    * flash
    * shockwave
    * quicktime
    * realplayer
    * mediaplayer

    Simple enter the input & output directory's and press convert. Object Activator does all the work for you ...

    Orontes
  • stayingtuned, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0FSR is a pretty nice utility to sweep through an entire site and update the flash objects to display normally within IE. Check it out at http://www.figit.com/fsr/
  • Orontes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Where can we find a trial for this FSR application? Object Activator offers a trial...
  • Orontes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Object Activator 1.43, does all the re-activation work for you:

    http://www.orontesprojects.com/activeobj/instobj.exe

    Mark
  •  

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