Just be advised, ActiveX is pretty outdated and almost nobody develops actively in it anymore. What exactly are you trying to learn here? If you're trying to learn about video and networking, just write a standalone server and client application (like your own RealPlayer.. though hopefully less annoying). If you're trying to learn about ActiveX and writing plugins for IE, why do you want to do that? Those API's aren't particularly outstanding examples of software engineering (i.e. you won't learn much that you can apply anywhere else) and they're becoming less and less relevant. One possibility is that you're learning stuff through an older Windows programming book, because these tend to have lots of ActiveX examples - keep in mind that you can do way more interesting things in C++ than Windows applications and ActiveX controls. Also, if you want to develop Windows applications as a job, learn .NET and C# (it's really not that different than C++).