Windows 7 Calling ActiveX dll

[jsampson1945]

[Crossposted from Windows 7 forum]
I have a commercial program with an interface intended to allow certain aspects to be run automatically by an external program written by the user. This interface consists of an ActiveX dll. Functions in it can be called from a Visual Basic 6 or VBA program, and it is speculated that it can be called from Visual Basic .NET. I have only been able to call it from VBA within Word or Excel, which works but is clumsy and awkward. I have been looking for a programming language implementation other than Visual Basic that can be used to write programs that call the DLL. So far I have not found one with a method of calling the DLL that I can understand. I am reasonably intelligent and can write short scripts in Python, but I am not a professional programmer. I would welcome suggestions.

 

[patcooke]

Try C++ or C sharp - you can do most anything from either of those.

 

[jsampson1945]

Try C++ or C sharp - you can do most anything from either of those.

No doubt - but as I say I am not a professional programmer. To call the DLL I load a VBA program into Word or Excel's VBA editor, then use the mouse to select the SICI in the drop-down list from Tools/References. I would rather not have to run Word or Excel each time. Can what is done with this drop-down list selection be automated in source code? Is there an intelligible discussion of ActiveX for non-Windows experts? From Google searches it seems to be connected with Web pages, but this DLL has nothing to do with Web pages.