Active X DLLs are in-process servers.  A class in a DLL operates just about the
same way as it would if it were in the application itself - in the same process
and thread.  You would use a DLL instead of incorporating the code directly
into your main application if:

- you want to be able to use exactly the same classes in several different
applications,
and/or
- you want to be able to update the code used in these classes without having
to recompile the application (s).

An ActiveX EXE is an out-of-process server.  It can also be used for the same
reasons as noted above for ActiveX DLLs, but because it runs as a separate
process it is much less efficient to do so.  You would thus only use an ActiveX
EXE rather tha an ActiveX DLL if and when you actually need the code to run in
a separate process and thread.  A good example would be background processing.

Regards,

John..................

1) You want multiple EXEs to talk to one process
    eg: you have a Server

2) You want to call a program by name
     Set oMyObj = CreateObject( ExeName$, ClassName$ )
     oMyObj.DoSomething

    in this case you can have ExeName$ and ClassName$
    as text in an Ini file

3) You want to kick off a different thread
    ie: have two processes really running simultaneously

4) You want to kick off something that can 'die' without
    having any impact on the calling App
    ie: to circumvent VB's dodgy unloading

Take a Web Server - a standard webserver can kick off a tiny App using
CGI-WIN, that can pass the parameters to an ActiveX EXE that is
already running and fully primed - it then queues the job - runs it
and notifies the caller when it is completed.

Another example is a 'communicator' for posting messages between Apps