Readme.txt for the ActiveX SDK

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft ActiveX SDK, version 1.0

SUMMARY

The following article contains the complete contents of the Readme.txt file distributed with the ActiveX SDK for Internet Explorer 3.01. (This is the Readme.txt installed on the \Inetsdk subdirectory.)

MORE INFORMATION

README.TXT

Release notes for the Microsoft ActiveX Development Kit: Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, 1996

Note: If you did not access this document from \INetSDK\Help\Default.htm, that is probably a better place to begin reading documentation. This readme.txt is the second URL in that document's right hand frame.

WELCOME TO THE ACTIVEX SDK:

Welcome to the Microsoft ActiveX Software Development Kit. These are the release notes of the November '96 release of the ActiveX SDK. It is intended to be installed with the Internet Explorer 3.01 (final version) and the latest release of the Win32 SDK (dated Aug. 96). The operating system for this release of the SDK is intended to be Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 SUR (final version).

Here's a brief description of the contents of this folder, followed by release notes.

BIN       SDK Tools, Redistributables, DLLs and self extracting .exe's
HELP      HTML reference files for all SDK components
INCLUDE   Include files for Win32 Internet Services and OLE Interfaces
LIB       Libraries for the ActiveX SDK
LICENSE   License for ActiveX SDK and Redistributable components.
SAMPLES   ActiveX SDK Samples
SPECS     Additional SDK documentation not yet in HTML references.

PREREQUISITE OF THIS RELEASE OF THE ACTIVEX SDK:

Notes on which VC++, MFC, Internet Explorer, and Win32 SDK are required.

This release introduces for the first time development support for RISC (Alpha, MIPs, and PowerPC). This is early beta level support for RISC. This release of the ActiveX SDK requires that you have downloaded and installed: * Internet Explorer 3.01. (final version)

  (http://www.microsoft.com/ie/iedl.htm)

  MSDN Level II.)

  for Intel, Microsoft Visual C++ 4.1 is the most tested.
  Do not use VC++ 4.2, unless you have obtained the VC++ 4.2b patch
  on the web at http://www.microsoft.com/visualc.

  For RISC development you should use VC++ 4.0a. (later versions of
  MFC, which is needed for some of the samples, are not yet available
  on all RISC platforms).

  If you are using VC++ 4.2b, you will need to modify the URLPad's
  MAKEFILE in order to get the sample to build. You will need to
  uncomment (remove the "#" symbol from) the line that reads
    # _MFC_LIB_ = 42

  If you use MFC 4.2 in your sample development, you should include
  that line to your makefile if you include INetSDK.MAK.

  cd c:\msdev\bin
  vcvars32 x86
  cd c:\mstools
  setenv c:\mstools
  cd c:\inetsdk
  setenv c:\inetsdk

   REM Batch file starts here.
   set lib =
   set include=

   c:
   cd c:\msdev\bin
   call vcvars32 x86
   cd c:\mstools
   call setenv c:\mstools
   cd c:\inetsdk
   call setenv c:\inetsdk

   REM Batch file ends here.

Cross Platform Downloading Issues: Now that we have RISC support becoming available, how do you download controls to different kinds of client platforms? Because the examples are better illustrated in HTML, you will find information on this in the SDK's Overview. (the overview of ...\INetSDK\Help\Default.htm)

Installing Issues: Because adding RISC support increased the size of the SDK significantly, I've broken up some of the documentation into separate downloads. I will refer to the three doc sets as MVB, OLE Refs., and ActiveX Refs.

The MVB doc set consists of the entire SDK doc set (OLE Refs., and ActiveX Refs.) in MVB format, and the InfoViewer for each of the supported NT platforms. ISVs have asked me to be sure to include this doc set in the SDK because it offers string search capability and the ability to print "books". They now account for about 13MB of the SDK, however; so if you are getting the SDK on a CD, the MVB is probably included and installed by default; if you are downloading from the web, you are seeing it as a separate download that you can choose if you wish. The setup of the MVB will allow you to install right into the SDK if you choose to. See that download for more details.

The OLE Refs. (or ActiveX COM HTML References) integrates with the ActiveX Refs. doc set. It makes up less than 5MB of the SDK; however it consists of nearly 1500 individual files. A limitation of the FAT file system is that regardless of how small a file is, it takes up a full cluster on the hard drive. This means these files will take up considerable space if installed, about 50MB on some machines. If you are using NTFS, or if disk space is not an issue for you, you can install these docs in the SDK; or you can choose to browse the same information in the MVB file. I have included OLERefs.zip as a download from the download site. To install the OLE Refs. in your SDK, unzip it in ..\INetSDK\Help\OLE. Make sure to use the -d option of your unzip utility so that the subdirectories are properly extracted. You can get unzipping utilities at http://www.winzip.com, or http://quest.jpl.nasa.gov/Info-Zip/

The ActiveX Refs. are what I refer to as the rest of the HTML documentation found starting in your \Help directory. They are downloaded and installed by default. They contain all of the other ActiveX documentation other than that found in the ActiveX COM references.

New Content: There is a difference in the way Internet Explorer 3.01 uses CSS1 (Cascading Stylesheet Specifications) properties which causes pages formatted for version 3.01 to appear differently when viewed with Internet Explorer 3.0. The problem is that stylesheet properties can be "inherited" at different object levels within the document. Version 3.01 correctly interprets inherited properties for margins and version 3.0 does not. A "readme" chapter with a section regarding stylesheets was added to the HTML Reference to explain the issue, and it gives a solution for creating stylesheets compatible with both versions of Internet Explorer.

REFRESHED SDKs: Conferencing and CAB Technology

The CabRscKit.exe has been added as a companion to CabDevKt.exe. These are self extracting .exe which provide you with everything you need to add CAB support to your applications. CabRscKt.exe adds support for the compression and decompression API, with documentation and sample code. To install this, drop it into a sub directory and execute. Read the Readme.txt from there.

The ActiveX Conferencing Technology has now been made available in a NetMeeting SDK 1.0a. Because this is now available as a self extracting .exe file in the \bin directory, I have pulled the \MSConf samples that normally installed with the ActiveX SDK. These are now in the self extracting .exe MSCNF10a.exe. You can visit their web site at http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/msconf.

ActiveX SDK for the Macintosh: See it at http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/SDK/Mac

SOME NEW SAMPLES:

CARD: Do you like to play Poker, or maybe Solitaire? Well now you can do it via your browser and ActiveX Controls. See the sample ...\INetSDK\Samples\BaseCtl\Card.

OBJVW: Quite a few ISVs who have been using the WebBrowser Control have run into similar issues. A new sample has been added to address some of these issues, like: how to access IE's Automation model and scripting model from within a contained control, how to enumerate controls and Java applets in a page, getting a controls ID or Name as specified in the OBJECT tag, how to know when a page is completely loaded, how to make a generic class to sink events, marking controls "Safe for Scripting", etc. This new sample is in ...\INetSDK\Samples\BaseCtl\ObjVw.

REDISTRIBUTABLE DLLs. WINTDist.exe APRXDist.exe, WINT351.exe, and AXDist.exe |New with this release: The Intel version of the Redistributables have |been refreshed with the same bits as ships in IE3.01.

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WINTDIST.exe: - WinInet.dll - InLoader.dll - SChannel.dll

WINT351.exe: Note: SChannel.dll requires Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 95 system components, so WINT351 does not install SChannel.dll. WINT351.exe will install WinInet functionality on Windows NT 3.51, but note, it requires enhancements to WinInet for asynchronous operations only available with Windows NT 3.51 Service Pack 4 (SP4). WINT351.exe will only work on Windows NT 3.51 with SP4. - WinInet.dll - InLoader.dll

AXDist.exe: - WinInet.dll - InLoader.dll - SChannel.dll - URLMon.dll - HLink.dll - HLinkPrx.dll - OLEAut32.dll - StdOLE2.tlb

CCDist.exe: (now available only in the Win32 SDK) - ComCat.dll

CCDist35.exe: (now available only in the Win32 SDK) - ComCat.dll

APRXDist.exe: - ActXPrxy.dll

Please read redist.txt for more details.

The purpose of making the redistributable is so ISVs can redistribute ActiveX files and target systems that may not have Internet Explorer 3.0 installed on them; but also to know that the files will be installed; with file dependencies and registry settings set correctly.

These DLLs are ONLY redistributable through the use of the self extracting executables listed above. See details on redistribution rights in redist.txt (which has recently been moved into your ActiveX SDK installation to \InetSDK\License.)

AXDist.exe, WINTDist.exe, APRXDist.exe, and CCDist.exe, work on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95. WINT351.exe install WinInet.dll and dependencies on Windows NT 3.51 (note, it is not meant to work on Windows NT 4.0). CCDist35.exe will soon be available for Windows NT 3.5.

WINT351.exe is silent by default. The other redistributable that run on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 are totally silent if executed with the /Q switch i.e. "WINTDist.exe /Q". Note, this does not work on Windows NT 4.0 betas, only on the final release. As part of their default behavior, the redistributables will version check and will not install older components over newer system files. In silent mode the user will not be prompted to make a choice.

If you have previously shipped earlier versions of these files, with your product; your installed base should be upgraded with these releases.

To test your WinInet code with these redistributables: * Start with a clean Windows 95 or Windows NT machine <without SDKs or

  Internet Explorer installed>.

To test your URLMon code with these redistributables: * Start with a clean Windows 95 or Windows NT machine <without SDKs or

  Internet Explorer installed>.

Alternately, for testing your code, do the following:

To test these files: * Start with a clean Windows 95 or Windows NT machine. * Install the Win32 SDK (a release dated May '96 or later). * Install the ActiveX SDK (dated August '96 or later).

  <note, the Internet Explorer should not be installed>

or/then ... For URLMon code: * Run AXDist.exe to install the rest of the files described

  above.

All of the files in each of the redistributables has been classified as a "Core Component". This essentially means that once these files are installed, they should not be uninstalled from a system. Your setup applications can distribute and execute these files, and will not have to be concerned with keeping usage count or uninstalling the files.

Note, if the redistributables don't meet your distribution needs, report problems to AXDistB1@microsoft.com