Mac and ActiveX

Question

Level 1

42 points

Mac and ActiveX

I understand that ActiveX is a Microsoft product and was widely used with Internet Explorer and Windows. I have a Mac running El Capitan. I have a Mediasmart server at home running Windows Home Server 2011. Unfortunately, to have remote web access to the server, it requires either a Windows computer or a Mac running a virtual environment. I have tried Safari using develop/user agent and Internet Explorer and it doesn't work. I have tried FF with IE Tab extension and it doesn't work. I tried using Winebottler but I get a crash message when it is installing IE 6. Finally, I tried using Parallels 10 and it does work, somewhat, but I don't want to use Parallels each and everytime I want to login to WHS 2011.

How can I fix this so I can access the server directly from the Mac itself?

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Mar 7, 2017 7:02 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 7, 2017 12:19 PM in response to pfisher112

Personally, since Microsoft Home Server is now a "dead" product (as of 2016),

I would start to investigate other alternatives for a server OS. Also, depending on

your use, is a full "server" required?

As others have said as well, ActiveX and other unpopular technologies are being

dropped by MS in current incarnations of Windows.

With that said, virtualization is really your only option if you must have ActiveX.

You could just create a barebones, completely stripped down XP VM that would

minimize system resources.

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Answer 2

Mar 8, 2017 5:26 AM in response to pfisher112

Active-X only works in Internet Explorer for Windows, it may not even work in the current/last version of Internet Explorer for Windows 10 and certainly does not work in Edge the supposed replacement for Internet Explorer.

Microsoft have long wished Active-X would crawl away and die. Developers these days are supposed to use .net to develop similar functions.

Note: Silverlight might be considered an alternative but again Microsoft wish that would also crawl away and die and again I do not believe it works in Edge.

Windows Home Server is also effectively deceased along with Microsoft Media Center. 😢

You could use - as you have already tried Parallels Desktop or alternatively VMware Fusion or VirtualBox which unlike the other two is free. There is actually a way to get a virtual machine for any of these free free of charge just to run Internet Explorer. See https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

VirtualBox plus a VM from the above at least solves any cost issues.

It should be possible to run some versions of Internet Explorer via Wine-Bottler or similar e.g. CrossOver Mac. See https://www.codeweavers.com/videos/internetexploreronmac

Whilst it would not be a web-browser solution potentially you could use Microsoft Remote Desktop Client on a Mac to remotely control the Windows Home Server. See https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id715768417?mt=12

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Answer 3

JimmyCMPIT

Level 7

29,258 points

Mar 7, 2017 7:09 AM in response to pfisher112

ActiveX may be a bit more complicated than simply running it as an x86 Application on Mac because it's a service and a toolset and it's optimized for Windows OS routines exclusively.

If virtualization is an option I would pursue it that way.

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Answer 4

Rudegar

Level 10

173,760 points

Mar 7, 2017 7:46 AM in response to pfisher112

it's deprecated it only ever worked on internet explore browsers and is not supported by internet explores replacement edge, even ms candidate to take over from activeX and compete with flash silverlight has been deprecated in favour of html5 java script

you likely need to install windows in a virtual machine such as virtualbox and you may wish to stick with windows 7 or earlier

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