Does XP need any of this stuff?

[casey.o]

Does XP need any of this stuff?

k-lite codek pack
active-x
direct-x`

I had to install the K-lite and at least one of those ___-x files. I'm
not sure if I have both or only one of the ___-x files in Win98. But I
do know I had to install K-lite. But maybe XP dont need this stuff, or
it's built in to the OS???? (I never remember which is which of those
___-x files or what they do.

Is there anything else that is an absolute need? (I got Adobe flash
player, and Foxit PDF reader).

I want to download all this stuff at a WIFI place to save time, so I may
as well make a list of needs.

Thanks

 

[Mayayana]

| Does XP need any of this stuff?
|
| k-lite codek pack
| active-x
| direct-x`
|

DirectX is for graphics display. Different versions
exist, which may be needed by specific software.
Usually it's not something you install, though a display
driver might update the installed version in some cases.

ActiveX is another word for COM. An ActiveX control
can be anything. It's not a matter of whether you need
it. A specific control could be needed by a specific program.
The system that makes ActiveX work is integral to Windows.
Asking whether you need ActiveX is sort of like asking
whether a library needs books measuring 7"x9".

I don't know of anything that's generally needed by any
XP install, other than maybe SP3.

| Is there anything else that is an absolute need? (I got Adobe flash
| player, and Foxit PDF reader).
|
Neither of which is absolutely needed. I don't have
Flash installed. (I only have .Net regrettably, and as of
recently, because my ATI display now requires it and
I don't want to go out and buy a new graphics card.)

If you're moving from Win98 there are many things
that might not run on XP. You might need to replace
some of those. Firewalls are a good example. Network
functionality was reworked after Win98. Also, XP Find
is terrible. I consider Agent Ransack to be an essential
part of XP. TweakUI for XP is good to have. People have
different opinions about what software is important. A
few things I always install are:

VLC Media Player
ImgBurn CD/DVD writer
7-Zip and the last free version of Power Archiver
Firefox
Libre Office
Filezilla FTP
Utilities from Sysinternals

There are some things pre-installed in XP. For instance,
if you ever needed to install SAPI speech-text libraries
in Win98, you wouldn't in XP. In general you probably don't
need to worry much about that.

A few things I personally find indispensible are here:

http://www.jsware.net/jsware/xpfix.php5

Included:

* A utility to make folder windows display
the size and style you want. (That functionality is
broken in XP.)

* A guide and utility for adjusting services. Services
are a whole new category of issues you should know
about in XP. They're basically background programs.
Many are set to run by default that are risky, unnecessary,
or both.

* One of my favorite tweaks for XP: A command line
that will uninstall PCHealth, disabling the whole System
File Protection mess. That allows you do delete all of
the backup bloat. It also allows you to delete whatever
system or program files you like. You can delete games,
Windows Media Player, or any of the other non-essential
but "protected" files you like without XP sneaking a hidden
copy back onto disk. ....It's not a tweak that everyone
wants, but getting rid of SFP is on my essentials list.

One example of how I use that is that XP sometimes
seems to forget my Classic view setting and inexplicably
gives me the Fischer-Price kiddie desktop that XP comes
with by default. I still don't know why that happens. The
Registry settings are the way they should be. But with
SFP removed it's an easy fix. I just delete the files involved
with creating the skinned display, so that XP can't show
anything but Classic view. (It's not really Classic view, as
opposed to another view. Rather it's normal Desktop as
opposed to "skinned". The newer modes like "Luna" are
actually done by overlaying images onto toolbars, window
frames, etc. Delete the image files and Classic view is
what remains.)

I think you'll find that despite being more bloated than
Win98 and having more built-in nags and nonsense, XP
is also more stable, and faster on the same hardware.
(The one exception to that being if you have very little
RAM, like less than 256 MB. XP requires more RAM than
Win98 does.)

The only thing I can think of that I *really* regret about
XP -- aside from the restriction of Product Activation --
is that they removed the Active Desktop folder design.
It used to be very handy to add features and functionality
by customizing folder windows in Win98.

 

[Paul]

Does XP need any of this stuff?

k-lite codek pack
active-x
direct-x`

I had to install the K-lite and at least one of those ___-x files. I'm
not sure if I have both or only one of the ___-x files in Win98. But I
do know I had to install K-lite. But maybe XP dont need this stuff, or
it's built in to the OS???? (I never remember which is which of those
___-x files or what they do.

Is there anything else that is an absolute need? (I got Adobe flash
player, and Foxit PDF reader).

I want to download all this stuff at a WIFI place to save time, so I may
as well make a list of needs.

Thanks

K-Lite would contain CODECs not in the OS.
Microsoft has their own video and audio standards (WMV,WMA),
and those CODECs would already be provided. A CODEC
to play a DVD should not be there (generally), as
the CODEC usage involves a licensing fee, and Microsoft
doesn't like to "give away" anything. Maybe an exception
there, would have been Windows7 (for certain versions with
Media Center capability).

The open source community has FFMPEG and libAVCodec,
which is one source of CODECs not in Windows. And
some of that is re-packaged in other CODEC packs.
The libAVCodec thing would be part of VLC as well. You might
not need quite as much of a CODEC pack, if using a
popular player like VLC, which has the CODECs built
into the executable.

When you attempt to play media, on some media players,
they consult the system at play time. They build a
filter graph (GraphEdit-like), and a chain of CODEC
components is put together in series, to play the media.
CODECs can be assigned weights, so if two CODECs exist
that do the same thing, there is a decision criteria
to pick one of them. But as far as I know, programs
like VLC, don't necessarily rely on that. Whereas,
Windows Media Player from Microsoft, would probably
try to build a filter graph in each case. So the CODEC
pack is of more help to a program like WMP.

*******

ActiveX is part of the OS. Plugins can be added to
your browser by downloading, which would be an example
of how you acquire executable content using that subsystem.
For example, Windows Update uses an ActiveX component,
as part of communicating with Microsoft, and giving
your details.

*******
DirectX includes a number of things.

Component parts might be DirectSound, Direct2D and Direct3D.

You can run "dxdiag" from Start : Run or from the Command Prompt
window, and a dialog box will appear with the details of your
current installation. If you buy and install a 3D game, for
the purposes of a WinXP user, it would install its own version
of DirectX 9c, the last version for WinXP.

And some version is already bundled in the OS. Running "dxdiag"
will give you a hint.

Downloading DirectX is a chore. DirectX 9c has been around for
a while. And newer files, all labeled DirectX 9c, would appear
at regular intervals. Each is given a date name, such as Mar 2008.
Typically, one of the differences between each dated file version, is
the addition of one specific file. Games can be written, looking for
that specific file. If you bought a game CD, usually the game includes
the specific version of DirectX it wants, which is how gamers can
have their system maintained up to date, and get those specific files
added.

Lets say I'm a gamer, and I install 3 game CDs. My DirectX file set is
kinda additive, so my installed file set looks like

Base set of DirectX 9c files...
Single file added from Mar 2008 <--- Made up dates, I didn't look these up...
Single file added from Jun 2008
Single file added from Mar 2010

DirectX installs are not intended to "go backwards". If you
have DirectX 7 installed and you install DirectX 9c, there is
no uninstall to remove it. You're at DirectX 9c and it is
backward compatible back to 7 or so. For users on really
old computers, playing really old games, you don't
update your DirectX or "you'll ruin it". For example, I
had a copy of some game with dinosaurs it in, the name I
forget, and it used something like DirectX 5 or something.
I may have updated my DirectX and when that game started,
the screen would turn black. So on absolutely ancient gamer
setups, you study the situation carefully before doing any
downloading. Games issued from the DirectX 7 era, there
is enough backward compatibility this is not an issue.
Systems at DirectX before 7, needs more research. On WinXP,
if you're a gamer, the game CD is your best source.

Also, some of the later OSes, it turns out they have an
extensive collection of stuff like that. It would seem,
for the gamer community, at least one of my Win7 or Win8
DVDs has a DirectX collection of installer files, as well
as at least some .NET, so in the future, if a person is stuck,
they can try data mining those kinds of DVDs. There's no
guarantee they're compatible with an older OS, but on the
other hand, I can't see them "updating" all those point
release files, so chances are they're still useful to people
with older OSes.

*******

You didn't ask about .NET, but I'll make a quick comment about
that. You only add .NET, if software needs it. An ATI video
card control panel, needs .NET 2.0. The .NET releases are
elements in a "stack", so .NET 3.0 is just a layer of the
stack above .NET 2.0. The release control in this case,
consists of Service Packs, such as .NET 2.0 SP1 and .NET 2.0 SP2
or the like. Those Service Packs would bring that layer up
to date. Now, when you get to .NET 4.0 or .NET 4.5, now they're
adding layers for "wedge purposes". For example, programmers will
write new programs using .NET 4.5 (for no particularly good reason),
and then the program won't run on WinXP (no 4.5). So the latest "layers"
of the cake exist, to "wedge" WinXP users. They'd do the
same thing to DirectX, except DirectX version number on
other OSes is already up to DirectX 11. (WinXP stops at 9c.)
And when new video cards come out soon, there will be no WinXP
support (DirectX 9c support) at all. All part of "wedging" WinXP
users. If you want an up-to-date video card for your WinXP system,
run don't walk to the nearest store. You would want to find
a video card *now*, with WinXP support still in it. That would
be for a serious gamer, who for some reason has just installed
a copy of WinXP. (A serious gamer wouldn't do that, but I needed
something I could use as an illustration of why.)

*******

Adobe flash player, and Foxit PDF reader would be good to have.
As would IrfanView or GIMP for photo editing. And a copy of
GhostScript to add to the machine, so GIMP can open PostScript or
PDF files. While Foxit can open a PDF file, if you want to edit
PDF pages as images, GhostScript can help with that.

http://www.irfanview.com/

http://www.gimp.org/

http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
http://www.ghostscript.com/download/gsdnld.html
"Ghostscript 9.10 for Windows (32 bit) Ghostscript GPL Release"

For working on videos, MediaInfo or GSpot help identify what
CODEC is needed (which may not be present on the computer).
I like the latter one, which is old now. This one will even
list all the CODECs which are accessible in the system. For
example, you run this before K-Lite, it might list 110 CODECs,
and after K-Lite, it might list 150 CODECs or whatever. That
allows you to see what impact such an installation has, on the
pool of CODECs. (Even if some of the CODECs are duplicates.)

http://gspot.headbands.com/v26x/GSpot270a.zip

HTH,
Paul

 

[Mayayana]

| I wonder just how safe it is to disable all those "seemingly unnecessary"
| services though (for a home computer), or if anyone has run into some
| unpleasant "surprises" by doing so. At least it provides some info on
them,
| though.
|
I think everyone really needs to do a little research
for their own system. I have the following services
running:

DCOM Server Process Launcher (required for WMI. I don't know
of anything else that needs it, and DCOM is an unsafe protocol
on a standalone machine.)
Event Log
Logical Disk Manager (Required for disk partition
operations under computer management)
Network Connections
Plug and Play
Print Spooler
Protected Storage
Remote Procedure Call (critical. Do Not Disable.)
Security Accounts Center
Security Manager
Shell Hardware Detection
System Event Notification
Themes
Windows Audio
WIA
WMI (Needed only if you run software that uses WMI.)

I have 3-4 other services connected to software:
Firewall, printer, etc.

Most of the rest is not necessary on a standalone
machine. Some is risky. Some is silly. Some will
be needed by some people but not by others. For
instance, I use a fixed IP address with my router.
If you use dynamic IP then you won't get online
unless you enable DHCP service. Since I use a fixed
IP I don't need DHCP. In fact, that's part of the
reason I started using a fixed IP. I don't like to
allow svchost through the firewall. It can mask too
many things. At some point I discovered that DHCP
was the only svchost-mediated service that needs
to get through. No DHCP, no need for svchost being
allowed out.

The XPFix utility is meant mostly just to provide easy
information. The services can also be looked up at
the "Black Viper" website. I think someone posted a link
for that recently.
If you're not sure about something you can set it to
manual rather than disabled. Then see if it gets started
by looking in the Services window after boot.

 

[casey.o]

No. That's a third party addon for media stuff like videos.



Yes. It's a part of Internet Explorer.



Yes, it's a part of Windows.

Thanks for everyone's help on this. I installed the video player "Media
Player Classic".(MPC) I have used that on my Win98 computer and my
laptop with XP. I really like it. I think VLC is a similar program.
When I installed MPC, it said I need to install Direct-X. But it works
fine without it. I took a look at my laptop, and found that I had the
installer on it for Direct-X 9c. I sort of recall getting that same
message when I installed MPC on that computer, and downloaded that
Direct-X installer. I'll have to check into the codec pack, but I
always figure that the less stuff installed is the best. Too much stuff
just slows down the computer.

Because I download most videos at WIFI spots, and play them at home,
that MPC program is excellent to play the mostly .MP4 files, or
sometimes .FLV. That program works great on both types.

I rarely use IE, so there is no sense adding anything to that. I did
upgrade to IE8. I hate IE6. I normally use Firefox, and lately have
been playing around with Seamonkey, which is similar to FF but more like
the older FF, without all the bloat they have added lately.

Thanks again!

 

[casey.o]

I've got both Media Player Classic and VLC (albeit on different computers).
Media Player Classic is great, but it needs some codecs, whereas VLC
contains everything built-in. That said, I like having both, and I wouldn't
say one is better or worse than the other. (I also have Zoom Player)

I normally only play .MP4 and .FLC files, and MPC has worked fine. It
also works just as well on Win98, which these days it's rare to find
much of any software that still works on W98. I recall trying VLC many
years ago, (probably Win95), and allI recall was for some reason it did
not work. I cant remember why. I have used and loved MPC for years
now. I DO have K-lite on the W98 machine, but so far not on the XP one.

BTW, Pale Moon is even more similar to FF than SeaMonkey (PM is basically FF
written with code *only* for windows OS's.

I'll have to look into Pale Moon!!!
I'm not pleeased with the direction FF is heading. Everytime I upgrade,
I have to reinstall all the extensions, and they seems to change faster
than light these days, while adding far too much bloat. FF has gotten
really slow too. And for W98, I'm stuck with FF2.x, or 3.x (with
kernel-ex). These just dont render pages decently anymore and the
script errors are getting on my nerves. Not to mention that sites like
Youtube constantly tell me to upgrade my browser, (which really pisses
me off).


Thanks

 

[casey.o]

Yes, I recall having script problems with the old browser versions, and it's
only going to get worse. Thankfully the day XP will be dead in its tracks
is still a ways off (and I'm not counting that as the day support ends - big
deal).

For the present, at least, I've stopped at version 22 of Firefox, as that
seemed good enough. Everytime you upgrade, there's a chance another add-on
plug-in will get broken, and besides, why fix what ain't broke. I
find myself using PM more than FF, but sometimes FF will still work a bit
better on a few sites than PM, so I have it, too.

My favorite browser was K-meleon, but they quit upgrading it. It still
works well as long as Java Script is turned off, but many sites wont
work properly without JS. With JS turend on I get script errors every
few minutes which cause the browser to hang. That's kind of sad,
because that was always the easiest browser to use, and I liked having
all the controls to shut off JS cookies, images, etc right on the front
of the browser. I just wish someone made a browser for W98 still, but I
suppose I'm one of the few who still use 98.

I dont much care about MS support. 98 has been withotu ti for years and
it still works fine, except for the lack of browsers. I dont have all
the crashes that most people say they have with 98, in fact I find it
very stable. But part of that is because I clean out all the junk
files, clean the registry, and defrag weekly or even more often.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>,

Because I download most videos at WIFI spots, and play them at home,
that MPC program is excellent to play the mostly .MP4 files, or
sometimes .FLV. That program works great on both types.

[]
Unfortunately, some extensions - certainly .avi, and I think .mp4 and
..flv - can actually use a variety of CoDecs, so even if your player(s)
can play those types now, they may still need more CoDecs adding later.
(I _think_ VLC includes CoDecs in its updates; MPC less so.)

 

[Mayayana]

| The Black Viper website was very interesting, and it even included a
preset
| "Safe script" already set up and ready to go as a reg file (just by
clicking
| on the reg file in the zip file).
|
| I tried it for kicks, but didn't notice any substantive changes in
| performance,

You probably wouldn't be likely to. Amny are minimal
services. Windows time, for instance, just goes online
occasionally to synchronize your clock. Others should be
disabled in most cases because they're risky, like Remote
Registry. Still others are only relevant on a network. It's
not a way to speed up your system. It's more for
housecleaning and security.... and just to be familiar with
what's going on.

| nor less processes shown running in Task Manager (at least for
| my particular case, where I had already disabled some of these services
| before on my own in Control Panel Services.
|
Most services don't show up in Task Manager, though
a number of them can be seen running under svchost if
you use Process Explorer from Sysinternals. (You can just
hover the mouse over an instance of svchost to see the
services it's handling.) That relates to what I was saying
about DHCP. I don't undertstand the technical details of
how svchost is "hosting" services, or why, but many of the
services seem to be running within a svchost process, as
in-process libraries, which makes them difficult to keep
track of.

A good example of a service that shouldn't be running on
a standalone computer is Messenger. (Not to be confused
with Windows Messenger.) If you do a search for

messenger service malware

you'll get numerous links. Messenger was originally set to
run by default. Most network/workstation services are set
to run by default, even though they shouldn't, because
Microsoft caters to corporate customers. Windows "Home"
version is really just Windows Workstation version. Messenger
is used by intranet admins to show messages to workstations,
like maybe "Please don't forget to turn off PCs before leaving for
vacation break." Or even, "Remember, the company cookout is
this Saturday. BYOB."
Scammers discovered they could pop up messages on
peoples' computers by hijacking Messenger and started holding
people hostage, trying to get payment in exchange for *not*
showing messages.
Messenger is probably not a security risk, per se. And it
wouldn't be taking much juice. But it has no business being
on a SOHo system in the first place. It's an unnecessary
complication.

| It turns out that I usually have about 40 processes shown running in Task
| Manager, more or less. I don't know if that's considered high or low.
I'd
| just guess it's about average though.
|

I have about 20, but as noted that doesn't include most
services. Aside from a few basics, that list is mostly the
current software running, plus things you allow to run at
startup.

Startup programs is a whole other kettle of fish. I find
that most people have lots of extras running there: Polling
and updating programs; hardware like printers and display
adapters that run background processes pointlessly. (My
ATI graphic chip driver, by default, installs a hog of a Display
Settings applet that would run all the time if I didn't stop it.
That's ridiculous, given that I'm likely to adjust the display
maybe twice per year.)

There are other startup programs, like Skype: It has no
need to be running, but needs to run at startup if one
wants to be able to receive unexpected calls.

Another category is "quickstart" junk. Program like MS
Office, Libre Office and Firefox may set those to run at
startup. Basically it's a trick to hide how hideously bloated
their software is. They load most of it at startup, so that
if you happen to open the program it jumps up responsively.

It goes on and on. Anyone who hasn't weeded their startup
list might benefit from downloading and using Autoruns from
Sysinternals. It's a very simple way to monitor startup
processes, and allows for reactiviating them, in case you
disable something and later realize it was useful.

 

[casey.o]

It goes on and on. Anyone who hasn't weeded their startup
list might benefit from downloading and using Autoruns from
Sysinternals. It's a very simple way to monitor startup
processes, and allows for reactiviating them, in case you
disable something and later realize it was useful.

Do you have a URL for this? I have wanted to find out what is loaded at
startup on XP. On win98 I have a program that shows it. I also use
Hijack-this, (on W98) which shows a lot. On my W98 I only have 4 things
that load at startup. All are required parts of the OS.

 

[Mayayana]

| Do you have a URL for this?

Sysinternals.com will work, but it sends you here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals

There are dozens of little utilities written by a well
known Windows programming expert. He later sold
the stuff to MS and was hired by them. The utilities
are still there, though.

Autoruns is very comprehensive, listing all sorts
of different categories of things that load at startup,
including drivers, services, browser plugins, etc.
They're in categories based on how they get loaded,
so it's still easy to look at only the standard list:
what's being loaded from the Registry Run keys or
Startup folder.

 

[Hot-Text]

Does XP need any of this stuff?

k-lite codek pack
active-x

Not Microsoft

direct-x`

Yes Microsoft

 

[Mayayana]

| > k-lite codek pack
| > active-x
| Not Microsoft

| > I had to install the K-lite and at least one of those ___-x files. I'm
| > not sure if I have both or only one of the ___-x files in Win98.

ActiveX is not a file or package. It's a marketing
name for COM, which is to say it's a programming
design or protocol native to Windows. As far as I
know, Flash in IE is an ActiveX control. But you don't
need to install any kind of ActiveX support for that.
It's already there. It's a basic part of the Windows OS.
A lot of software uses ActiveX controls. There are also
many ActiveX controls and libraries used in Windows.
Any .ocx file is an ActiveX control. Some DLLs are
ActiveX or partially ActiveX. *It is not something you
install or don't install. It's not something that your
system needs or doesn't need, any more than EXE
files are.*

 

[Hot-Text]

| > k-lite codek pack
| > active-x
| Not Microsoft

| > I had to install the K-lite and at least one of those ___-x files.
I'm
| > not sure if I have both or only one of the ___-x files in Win98.

ActiveX is not a file or package. It's a marketing
name for COM, which is to say it's a programming
design or protocol native to Windows. As far as I
know, Flash in IE is an ActiveX control. But you don't
need to install any kind of ActiveX support for that.
It's already there. It's a basic part of the Windows OS.
A lot of software uses ActiveX controls. There are also
many ActiveX controls and libraries used in Windows.
Any .ocx file is an ActiveX control. Some DLLs are
ActiveX or partially ActiveX. *It is not something you
install or don't install. It's not something that your
system needs or doesn't need, any more than EXE
files are.*

Does XP need any of ActiveX stuff? No
Opara do not use it
IE have ActiveX control. off
I know not about FF i do not use it

I'll show you that Ms-IE don't
do a ActiveX dowmloads
That it's you would like to have it

it have a dowmload for a
Webcam ActiveX control

DirectX Yes
becuse your Computer need
the Drives for 3D

 

[Hot-Text]

Web browser add-ons: what you need to know
Web browser add-ons add features (for example, extra toolbars, animated
mouse pointers, stock tickers, and pop-up ad blockers) to your web browser.

Where do add-ons come from?

Many add-ons come from the Internet, and they usually require that you give
your permission before they are installed on your computer. Some, however,
might be installed without your knowledge. This can happen if the add-on was
part of another program that you installed. Some add-ons are installed with
Microsoft Windows.

How can I see which add-ons are installed?

To see all installed add-ons

1.. In Internet Explorer, click the Tools button, and then click Manage
Add-ons.
2.. Under Add-on Types, click Toolbars and Extensions.
3.. Under Show, select one of the following options:
a.. To display a complete list of the add-ons that reside on your
computer, click All add-ons.
b.. To display only those add-ons that were needed for the current
webpage or a recently viewed webpage, click Currently loaded add-ons.
c.. To display add-ons that were pre-approved by Microsoft, your
computer manufacturer, or a service provider, click Run without permission.
d.. To display only 32-bit ActiveX controls, click Downloaded Controls
(32-bit).
4.. When you are finished, click Close.
There are several add-ons listed in the Add-on Manager that I did not
install. How did they get on my computer?

Some add-ons are pre-approved and can be installed on your computer
originally. Pre-approved add-ons can come from Microsoft, your computer
manufacturer, your Internet Service provider, or are previously installed by
you or your network administrator. To see the pre-approved add-ons that are
installed on your computer, do this:

To view pre-approved add-ons

1.. In Internet Explorer, click the Tools button, and then click Manage
Add-ons.
2.. Under Show, click Run without permission.
3.. You will now see a list of all pre-approved add-ons. When you are
finished looking at the list, click Close.
What can I do if I think an add-on is causing trouble?

Add-ons are typically fine to use, but sometimes they force Internet
Explorer to shut down unexpectedly. This can happen if the add-on was
created for an earlier version of Internet Explorer or has a programming
error.

Here's what you can do:

a.. Disable it. If an add-on causes repeated problems, you can disable it
through Manage Add-ons.
b.. Report it. When prompted, you might want to report the problem to
Microsoft. The report is anonymous and requires nothing from you except your
permission. These reports are used to improve our products and to encourage
other companies to update and improve theirs.
Can I remove Add-ons or ActiveX controls?

You can only remove ActiveX controls that you have downloaded and installed.
You cannot remove ActiveX controls that were pre-installed or add-ons of any
kind, but you can disable them. To remove an ActiveX control that you have
installed, use Manage Add-ons. If the add-on cannot be removed in Manage
Add-ons, you might be able to uninstall it through Control Panel.

To remove ActiveX controls you have installed

1.. In Internet Explorer, click the Tools button, and then click Manage
Add-ons.
2.. Under Add-on Types, click Toolbars and Extensions.
3.. Under Show, click Downloaded controls to display all ActiveX controls.
4.. Click the ActiveX control you want to remove, and then click More
information.
5.. In the More information dialog box, click Remove.
6.. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for every control you want to delete. When you
are finished, click Close.
How can I disable a browser add-on?

Before you disable a browser add-on, keep in mind that some webpages, or
Internet Explorer itself, might not display properly if an add-on is
disabled. We recommend that you only disable an add-on if it repeatedly
causes Internet Explorer to close.

To permanently disable add-ons

1.. In Internet Explorer, click the Tools button, and then click Manage
Add-ons.
2.. Under Show, click All add-ons.
3.. Click the add-on you want to disable, and then click Disable.
4.. Repeat step 3 for every add-on you want to disable. When you are
finished, click Close.
Follow the steps below to run Internet Explorer with all add-ons temporarily
disabled. Add-ons will be disabled only until you restart Internet Explorer
normally.

To temporarily disable all add-ons

a.. In Windows, click the Start button, click All Programs, point to
Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Internet Explorer (No
Add-ons).
Notes

a.. You can also start Internet Explorer without add-ons by right-clicking
the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop and then clicking Start Without
Add-ons.
b.. If you find that disabling all add-ons solves the problem you were
having, you might want to disable the add-ons permanently by disabling each
one individually in Manage Add-ons.

How do I re-enable an add-on?

You might want to re-enable a browser add-on if you disabled an add-on but
want to go to a site that requires it, or if disabling the add-on caused
general display problems with webpages or Internet Explorer.

To re-enable a browser add-on

1.. In Internet Explorer, click the Tools button, and then click Manage
Add-ons.
2.. Under Show, click All add-ons.
3.. Click the add-on you want to enable, and then click Enable.
4.. Repeat step 3 for every add-on you want to enable. When you are
finished, click Close.
Related Topics

 

[Mayayana]

| Does XP need any of ActiveX stuff? No

The terms are confusing. Open regedit, then open
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, then scroll down past the
file extensions. What you'll see there is a very long
list of "classes". Some are file types. Many are objects
from installed ActiveX controls. Without those much or
all of your software would break. ActiveX/COM is a system
or protocol for executable software. You can't "remove"
ActiveX and you can't install it. It's not good or bad.
It's a cleverly designed system to "encapsulate"
functionality and to allow software to find that
functionality.

The problem is the intimate connection between
ActiveX and IE. ActiveX controls can run in IE. An
ActiveX control is essentially a software program:
The IE version of Flash, a button, a database, a volume
slider, a text window.... almost anything can be in the
form of an ActiveX control. Those same controls also
run in Windows software. That's the catch. The fact
that core Windows functionality is accessible in IE is
the problem.

Add-ons are COM or ActiveX, though they're not actually
ActiveX controls. They're shell extensions -- ActiveX
programs that extend the Windows GUI. Again, shell
extensions are not the problem. The connection to IE
is the problem.

Example: I wrote an Explorer Bar for folder windows
that allows me to have a panel on the left side of all
folder windows. The panel is my own custom design
and I can put any functionality there that I like.

http://www.jsware.net/jsware/jsfv.php5

My Explorer Bar is ActiveX/COM based. It has to be
because it's a shell extension. That's how Windows works.
My Explorer Bar links to IE. I can't make it not do that.
I had to also write a BHO as part of the process of getting
my Explorer Bar loaded. If I open the IE add-ons window
I see my BHO listed as an "unverified" BHO. I don't see my
Explorer Bar listed.

The way it works is that whenever IE *or* a folder window
is opened, my BHO is called. If the window is a folder it
then loads the Explorer Bar. I ignore IE because my Explorer
Bar is not useful in IE. But I actually have to do some work
to avoid loading in IE. When a folder or IE opens my BHO is
called and given a "handle" to the "IE automation object" for
that window. What that means is that I have full access to,
and control over, the document in an IE window, the IE window
itself, the files and folders in an Explorer window, and the
Explorer window itself. My BHO can know and control everything
that happens. It doesn't matter wheter I load the Explorer
Bar. The BHO is the one with the power. I use that handle
to do things like show a thumbnail when an image is selected
in an Explorer window. But I could also use it to rewrite the
webpage you see, to edit files you open....anything I like.

**There's no way to separate IE from Explorer. It's a brilliant
design that makes Windows wonderfully customizable. And it
makes IE wonderfully powerful and adaptable. But it's also a
big reason why you should not use IE online.**

But..... ActiveX is not to blame for that problem.