IE11 prevents ActiveX from running

Question

Our web browser plugin works fine in IE9 and IE10 but in IE11 the plugin is neither recognized as an add-on or allowed to run. It\'s as if IE11 no longer supports ActiveX.

Answer 1

IE displays a active x warning and ask for permission if you allow it to run or not. To overcome this the only solution is to;

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options.
3. On the Security tab, click the Custom level button.
4. Scroll down the Security Settings list until you see ActiveX controls and plug-ins.
5. For Automatic prompting for ActiveX controls, click Enable.
6. Scroll down to Download signed ActiveX controls and click Enable or Prompt.
7. Scroll down to Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins and click Enable or Prompt.
8. Scroll down to Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting and click Enable or Prompt.
9. Click OK, and then click OK again.

There is no way to overcome this issue except changing manually Internet explorer settings. Try checking if plugin works fine while changed settings. If its still not working or not showing any warning is display try checking console for other errors which are not related to active x. Good luck!

Answer 2

We started finding some machines with IE 11 not playing video (via flash) after we set the emulation mode of our app (web browser control) to 110001. Adding the meta tag to our htm files worked for us.

Answer 3

In my IE11, works normally. Version: 11.306.10586.0

We can test if ActiveX works at IE, in this site: http://www.pcpitstop.com/testax.asp

Answer 4

There is no solution to this problem. As of IE11 on Windows 8, Microsoft no longer allows ActiveX plugins to run in its browser space. There is absolutely nothing that a third party developer can do about it.

A similar thing has recently happened with the Chrome browser which no longer supports NPAPI plugins. Instead Chrome only supports PPAPI plugins which are useless for system level tasks once performed by NPAPI plugins.

So developers needing browser support for system interactive plugins can only recommend either the Firefox browser or the ASPS web browser.

Answer 5

Does IE11 displays any message relative to the blocked execution of your ActiveX ?

You should read this and this.

Use the following JS function to detect support of ActiveX :

function IsActiveXSupported() {
    var isSupported = false;

    if(window.ActiveXObject) {
        return true;
    }

    if("ActiveXObject" in window) {
        return true;
    }

    try {
        var xmlDom = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
        isSupported = true;
    } catch (e) {
        if (e.name === "TypeError" || e.name === "Error") {
            isSupported = true;
        }
    }

    return isSupported;
}

Answer 6

Here's how I got it working:

1. Include your URL in IE Trusted Sites

2. run gpedit.msc (as Admin) and enable the following setting:

gpedit->Local->Computer->Windows Comp->ActiveX Installer->ActiveX installation policy for sites in Trusted Zones

Enabled + Silently,Silently,Prompt

3. Run gpupdate

4. Relaunch your Browser

NOTES: Windows 10 EDGE don't have trusted sites, so you have to use IE 11. Lots of folk moaning about that!