Scriptlets behave in a very similar way to ActiveX controls in a Web page, because—as we saw earlier—they are wrapped up in another software layer that exposes a COM interface. This wrapper is Internet Explorer_Server, otherwise known as the Microsoft Scriptlet Control. This also holds true when we start to consider the use we can make of Scriptlets in ordinary desktop applications. A Scriptlet can be hosted in a Visual Basic form or in an MFC-based application, just as easily as it can in an HTML page.
The Microsoft Scriptlet Control, which comes with IE 4, is responsible for this language-independence. It means that, outside a Web page, we can use Scriptlets everywhere that ActiveX controls are accepted. The Scriptlet Control is wrapped around the Scriptlet in the same way as in a Web page, and its ActiveX (COM) interface works just the same in VB, C++, Office 97, Delphi, and many other languages. The proof is in the screenshot below, which demonstrates that even from a VB Form, we find the Internet Explorer_Server window in the middle again!