OLE Automation - Name Confusion

Name Confusion

Automation objects do not necessarily use Microsoft OLE, which stands for Object Linking and Embedding — currently only a subset of COM — although some of Automation objects (which are a special type of COM objects) can be used in OLE and/or ActiveX environments. The confusion has its roots in Microsoft's earlier (rather vague) definition of OLE, which was previously more or less a synonym of COM — to the point that the acronym "OLE" frequently appears in legacy COM code, like parts of the MFC library.