OK - this has been causing me problems for the last day or so and I've managed to come up with a tentative workaround. When you attempt add the Shockwave Flash Object (Version 8) to a form in a new or existing project - the IDE presents the message 'Failed to import the ActiveX control. Please ensure it is properly registered'. Checking out MSDN Product Feedback centre - this issue has been reported as a 'bug' and as of typing this message it is unresolved.
Other indicators can be found in the Error-List (under the Warnings Tab)...
- Could not resolve dependent COM reference "stdole, Version=7.0.3300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a".
- Failed to create the wrapper assembly for type library "AxShockwaveFlashObjects". Exception of type 'Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ComReferenceResolutionException' was thrown.
- The referenced component 'AxShockwaveFlashObjects' could not be found. Failed to create the wrapper assembly for type library "AxShockwaveFlashObjects". Exception of type 'Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ComReferenceResolutionException' was thrown.
Now my jaded logic resolves the problem to simply being an issue with Visual Studio's 2005 ability to create an appropriate COM wrapper for the Flash Control (yes, I know that's one of the messages above - but I worked this out before noticing the above - so there). So - to the workaround...
Close your project and then copy the 'AxInterop.ShockwaveFlashObjects.dll' file into your project's '\obj\Debug' directory. OK - what happens if you haven't got this file? Well, you can either the copy generated on my computer from here or use the 'AxInterop.ShockwaveFlashObjects.dll' file from a VS2003 project - harvested from the appropriate 'obj' directory. Once completed, reload the project and attempt to add the control again and that should be it!
Now I've tried both and whilst both work - there is a difference on my computer of 11Kb between the two versions, the VS2005 linked above being 17Kb and the VS2003 version being 28Kb.
So - if that isn't a big enough disclaimer for you - I don't know what else is. So be careful, etc.. Hopefully, this workaround will work for you as well as it did for me. Note: in this instance - if this workaround did or didn't work for you - please feel free to add your comments...
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