I am not familiar with this, and can use a kick start.
I am using ATL (unmanaged C++) user control and would like to use the ShockWave ActiveX object. I need to know how to declare it so that I can set a property or call a method.
For instance, if I could assign a variable to it, then I would like to call 'variable->LoadMovie()'
I know this is super ridiculous... almost embarrassed to ask it here. ;) (almost)
If you #import the dll (which I recommend when working with COM because it makes your life SO much easier), you can use a smart pointer paired with the CLSID of the object. Remember that smart pointer classes have the post-fix 'Ptr' after the interface name.
For instance:
ISomeInterfacePtr pSomeInterface( CLSID_SomeComponent );
HRESULT hr = pSomeInterface->SomeMethod();
Hope that helps.
EDIT: If you want to check the HRESULT of the allocation, you can do the following:
ISomeInterfacePtr pSomeInterface = 0;
HRESULT hr = pSomeInterface.CreateInstance( CLSID_SomeComponent );