Support for the Internet

Required:
Authors of ActiveX® Controls must digitally sign their controls, as specified in the ActiveX SDK. Controls should also be marked “safe for persistence” as appropriate. For more information, see the ActiveX SDK at http://www.microsoft.com/IntDev/sdk.

Recommended:
In addition to the above requirements, the following behaviors are recommended:

• Authors of ActiveX Controls should provide support for automatic code download. If the control is a single file, then no additional work is required. If multiple files are required, then a .cab, .inf, or a self-extracting executable should be provided. Refer to the Internet Component Download spec in the ActiveX SDK.
  
  
• Any code intended to be downloaded from the Internet should support Authenticode signing. Commercial publishers should obtain a digital signature from http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/security/authcode/certs-f.htm Executables should be signed to allow users to identify provenance, using procedures and technology found at http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/security/authcode/codesign-f.htm
  
  
• Applications should register an Internet update site for the application when installing. This site will provide information about upgrades available for the application. Upgrades should be made available for user-initiated download. See the Installation section for more information about how to include this URL in the registry.
  
  
• Applications should also register a general product information site when installing. See the Installation section for more information about how to include this URL in the registry.
  
  
• Applications, tools, controls, or any other software that installs or sets up DLLs should honor the ModuleUsage registry section described in the appendix of the ActiveX SDK.
  
  
• Your application should support WinSock 2. Note that support for the Broadcast PC capabilities of future versions of Windows will require WinSock 2. For more information on writing WinSock 2 applications refer to the Win32 SDK online documentation.
  
  
• Your application should expose the Help files as HTML. Over time, Microsoft will phase out support for the WinHelp engine, and replace it with Web-based help.
  
  
• Your application should have an FTP save option, enabling a user to save to an FTP site in the same way as they can save to the local drive or to a network drive.
  
  
• Your application should produce documents that can be viewed from a browser. You can do this either by implementing a “Save As HTML” feature, or by adding ActiveX Document (docobj) support to your application. See the ActiveX SDK for more information about adding ActiveX Documents.