Microsoft has made it a point to remove or otherwise disable most legacy stuff, but some people might still use it. Microsoft Office 2024, the upcoming single-license edition of Office, will not have ActiveX controls—but you can reenable them if you need them.
Microsoft is set to disable ActiveX controls by default in its upcoming Office 2024 suite. This change will impact Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Visio applications. ActiveX, a legacy software framework, has been a persistent source of security vulnerabilities, often exploited by hackers to deliver malware. That, combined with the fact that it’s probably not being used all that often by people out of the box, probably led Microsoft to decide to just disable it.
However, DirectX is not being removed completely, in case you have documents or automations that absolutely need that feature to work. It’s just being disabled by default, but you can take steps to turn it back on if you need it.
The move to disable ActiveX is part of Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to bolster security in its products. In recent years, the company has taken steps to disable or restrict features that have been commonly misused by attackers, such as Excel 4.0 macros and VBA macros. In addition to this, Microsoft has also recently removed a bunch of legacy features from its software, including the Windows operating system. Office has also been around for decades, almost as long as Windows has been around, so it’s probably also due for some cleaning.
The disabling of ActiveX will be rolled out in phases, starting with Win32 Office desktop apps in October 2024 and extending to Microsoft 365 apps in April 2025. While some ActiveX objects will continue to appear as static images, you will no longer be able to interact with them.
Source: Bleeping Computer
