November 25, 2019

ActiveX-piration in NetDocuments

For those of you not following the Announcements page on the NetDocuments support site (shame on you!), it was recently announced that a new version of the ActiveX control will need to be installed prior to December 10th, 2019 to continue leveraging this control. 

The first question you may be asking is what is the ActiveX Control?  This control is a plug-in for the Internet Explorer web browser that provides various functions related to transferring files between the NetDocuments platform and your computer.  The most important feature may be the seamless hand-off of documents to ndOffice, allowing automatic checkout and check-in to occur when using Microsoft Word, Excel, etc.

Your second question may be whether this impacts you?  This is largely determined by whether Internet Explorer is your default browser.  The best way to confirm if you are using Internet Explorer is to open your web browser and connect to NetDocuments.  If you see a blue “e” icon with a yellow ring on your task bar, you are using Internet Explorer.  Note that Microsoft Edge has a similar blue “e” icon but it does not have the yellow ring.  Here’s an example of each.  If you are still unsure, you can have your favorite computer support person confirm which browser you are using.

Internet Explorer:  Microsoft Internet Explorer logo  Microsoft Edge:  Microsoft Edge logo

 

How do you update the ActiveX Control? 

You have two main options for updating the ActiveX Control.  First, you can get ahead of the issue, and download the updated installer from NetDocuments’  Urgent Action Required ActiveX Update page.  Second, you can wait until December 5th (not our recommendation), and install automatically when prompted as you access the NetDocuments site.  Both methods do require you to have administrative access to your computer so you may need to coordinate with that favorite computer support person if the install does not complete successfully.  We recommend being proactive and updating ActiveX sooner rather than later.

One final point worth noting is that NetDocuments previously announced that support for Internet Explorer and the ActiveX Control will terminate on March 31st, 2020.  This means that you should start planning a transition to another web browser if you are still using Internet Explorer. 

For more information and a list of supported browsers, visit NetDocuments’ End of Life for Explorer and ActiveX support page. Or, as always, contact Affinity any time. You can reach us at 877-676-5492, or simply request a consultation. 

 

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