What is OLE Automation?

In Microsoft Windows applications programming, OLE Automation (later renamed by Microsoft to just Automation, although the old term remained in widespread use), is an inter-process communication mechanism based on Component Object Model (COM) that is intended for use by Scripting Languages -originally Visual Basic, but now many languages that run on Windows. It provides an infrastructure whereby applications called automation controllers can access and manipulate (i.e. set properties of or call methods on) shared automation objects that are exported by other applications. It supersedes Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), an older mechanism for applications to control one another. As with DDE, in OLE Automation the automation controller is the "client" and the application exporting the automation objects is the "server".