Using an ActiveX with .NET is achieved with one of these : - you simply want to drag&drop the component onto a form. So yes, you import it from the Toolbox Window, and when you drop it, the .NET environment creates two wrapper assemblies (one for the ActiveX layer, one for the underlying COM layer). That's perfect as long as you just need to call methods, properties, and stuff. I would think that, once activated in a form, the ActiveX would by itself (I mean with no additional code) selfs depersists, hence load the previous state, but eh... who knows... - the other solution is to bypass the wrapper assemblies, and derive the System.Windows.Forms.AxHost class. Once derived, you just need to implement a few methods to get this class actually attached to the underlying ActiveX. For more info on it, just googlesearch with "AxHost" : you'll find code. What I said in an earlier post is, once the class is derived, you may call one of the listed methods in the constructor (or any adequate place) to load the previous state. MS quote (http://www.microsoft.com/ddk) : As of September 30, 2002, the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 DDK, the Microsoft Windows 98 DDK, and the Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 DDK will no longer be available for purchase or download on this site.