VMware Horizon Community
arbware
Contributor
Contributor

how to thinapp a .ocx install?

I am trying to ThinApp an .ocx file that is needed to run an online configurator. When I brows to the location of the online configurator (http://h10144.www1.hp.com/configurator/configurator.htm ) I am asked to install a .ocx file, once installed the configured works correctly. My end goal is to wrap the .ocx file up in a msi file and deploy it to some workstations that users don’t have admin right on. I have tried to do pre-scan, then install the .ocx, test the app, and lastly a post scan but the post scan did not find the ocx file.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

If I understand what you're trying to do correctly, I'm afraid it is not possible. An .ocx is a DLL. ThinApp can't virtualize at the DLL level, it can only virtualize a complete application.

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frumrk
Contributor
Contributor

You need an entry point to access a Virtual Application. What I have seen some people do with AppV is to create a link to Internet Explorer (which in that case was using the active x component) within the package. But the question remains... why would you want to do that. If you want to virtualize all activeX compoenents then you would have to post a new package with all of the each time you got a new one... or you would have a separate Shortcut for IE for each ActiveX component that you had.

But.... is is possible.

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frumrk
Contributor
Contributor

One other possibility would be to create the ThinApp package of the OCX and Link it to the dependent application. Of course in this case the dependant application would have to be virtualized also.

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Shondoit
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

We actually came across the same issue just now.

But we also managed to get a workaround.

Just keep in mind that it worked in our situation and it might not work in yours (or may need some adjustments)

What we did is make a capture of the OCX install and used cmd.exe as an entry point.

The capture contained the ocx file and registry settings and the like.

We then added the following lines to package.ini of this capture under BuildOptions:

ChildProcessEnvironmentDefault=External

ChildProcessEnvironmentExceptions=iexplore.exe

This makes sure that Internet Explorer will be loaded within the virtual environment.

Finally, we added the following line to the entrypoint in package.ini

CommandLine=%ProgramFilesDir%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe "http://url.to/website"

Now, whenever you open the entry point, Internet Explorer will be loaded virtually and thus will see the virtual environment. Including the (virtually) installed OCXI hope this helps anyone reading this.

Again, it might need some adjustments to work in your specific situation.

In our case, we know for certain that IE is installed and will be used for this web application, since we maintain these PCs ourselves.

It's also possible to let a vbscript load IE instead of using CommandLine, so it won't show the ugly black box before loading. We'll see if we can get this done for our own situation.

But that's something for tomorrow, right now my work day is over :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:

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