Opening an OCX File

The OCX file type is primarily associated with Visual Studio.

OCX	File extension: OCX
	File type:	custom control component

What is an OCX file

OCX files mostly belong to Visual Studio by Microsoft. An OCX file is a custom control component used to automate an OLE object in Windows programs that use ActiveX framework. A single OCX file contains compiled code which controls some aspect of an application's user interface (e.g. form, scrollbar). It can be created with Visual Studio using Visual Basic language or wxWidgets framework. ActiveX has been deprecated.

How to open OCX files

You need a suitable software like Visual Studio from Microsoft to open an OCX file. Without proper software you will receive a Windows message "How do you want to open this file?" or "Windows cannot open this file" or a similar Mac/iPhone/Android alert. If you cannot open your OCX file correctly, try to right-click or long-press the file. Then click "Open with" and choose an application. You can also display a OCX file directly in the browser:. Just drag the file onto this browser window and drop it.

Online OCX Text Viewer

Choose your .ocx file to analyze

or drag and drop it here

Online File Viewer

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OCX file extension format:

Why is it important to know the file format? This is the only way to find out which program to use to open the file. The file format can be deduced from the file extension and the signature. Frequently, however, one file extension is used by different programs for different file formats, and one file format for different file extensions. So a detailed analysis of a file is vital in order to determine the format and the associated program. Our examination of the OCX files comes to the following conclusion:

The OCX extension is very commonly found and uses a well-defined format that can be read by many programs. However, the following two file formats are common:

• 90% of all OCX files are Windows ActiveX control files, which are using the popular EXE file format. EXE is the abbreviation for executable and is the standard executable file format on Windows. The format can be identified by the letters "MZ" at the beginning. Executable files can also be used to distribute viruses and other types of malicious software (malware). The contents of these files cannot be read by a human; only a computer program can interpret the data. The files are on average 360 KB in size and range from 73 KB to 1 MB. The file type is very old and rarely used today. The files contain the following words: !This program cannot be run in DOS mode. The following filename is common: Mscomctl.ocx or ComDlg32.ocx. Files like these are about flash, mscomct, mscomm, tabctl, mswinsck, ctrl, codejock and comctl.
• 7% of all OCX files use ZIP compression, so several files are compressed and saved in one OCX file. An OCX file contains 11 to 25 files, the average being 13. File names are e.g. [Content_Types].xml, \_rels\.rels, \docProps\app.xml, \docProps\core.xml, \word\_rels\document.xml.rels, \word\document.xml, \word\endnotes.xml, \word\fontTable.xml, \word\footer1.xml, \word\footnotes.xml, \word\numbering.xml, \word\settings.xml, \word\styles.xml, \word\theme\theme1.xml and \word\webSettings.xml. If you want to see the included files and images, simply rename the file extension to .zip and double-click it. OCX files are between 13 KB and 380 KB in size. The files contain the following words: [Content_Types].xml. The following filename is common: FS minutes 2020-06-01.ocx. Files like these have the following tags: minutes and story.

All the rest of the OCX files (3%) have different formats. The category is richtx, msflxgrd, control, comct, active, msinet or skin. Just click the "Choose your .ocx file to analyze" button on this page to find out what your OCX file is.