Have the ActiveX control installed in your Windows environment — This includes one or more DLL files. Install the ActiveX control according to the vendor's instructions. The primary control file usually has an .ocx extension. Note that other files might also be required and installed, as well.

Have a license installed that allows you to access the ActiveX control in design mode — Not all ActiveX controls require licenses for design-time access, but most commercial ActiveX controls do. Licenses generally come with the vendor's installation, and are either recorded in the registry or in a license file, often with a .lic extension. ABL stores the license information for the ActiveX controls that it installs in the registry.

Use the OpenEdge AppBuilder to create an instance of the ActiveX control in your application — The AppBuilder allows you to select the ActiveX control in design mode and place an instance of it into your application. It also allows you to set the values the properties of the control will initially assume at runtime, and saves these values in a separate binary file. This file (by default) has the same name as your application file with the .wrx extension. The .wrx file contains the definitions of all ActiveX control instances in the corresponding application (.w) file.