ActiveX and OCX was a generalization of VBX using OLE, a document embedding standard built on top of object-oriented RPC (COM), but with simplified typing (Vari

ActiveX and OCX was a generalization of VBX using OLE, a document embedding standard built on top of object-oriented RPC (COM), but with simplified typing (Variant rather than the full gamut of RPC native types). The concept of drag and drop components, and the PME (Property / Method / Event) programming paradigm is what made VB a success. VBX and OCX were implementation technologies and not really the secret sauce, except to the degree that they made the system extensible so it wouldn't be forever a toy with a fixed set of building blocks.