Access 2007 error using MSHFLXGD.OCX - Because of your security settings and current secruity policy, this control is disabled

After the Feb. 11, 2009 security updates from Microsoft, I had some customers call and inform me that a database I had written for them no longer was fully functional.  A form that was using MSHFLXGD.OCX (Microsoft Hierarchical FlexGrid Control 6.0) was not displaying.  Instead they would get the message:

 

Because of your security settings and current security policy, this control is disabled.  To modify your policy and enable the database, use the Message Bar.

 

A little research later and I read about a security update that went out to fix a memory leak in this control: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-070.mspx

 

One of the security updates overnight disabled the old control and resulted in that error above.

  

To fix this issue:

 1) Download the Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Service Pack 6 Security Rollup Update from Microsoft.

•  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E27EEBCB-095D-43EC-A19E-4A46E591715C&displaylang=en
  

 

2) Extract these files to your computer.  I was unable to run the MSI file since my workstation no longer has VB6 on it.  So, I had to extract the contents of this MSI to get at the .OCX.

• msiexec.exe /a [PathToMSIFile] /qb TARGETDIR=[PathToExtractTo]
  

 

3) Unregister the old OCX file.

• regsvr32 /u mshflxgd.ocx
  

 

4) Replace your old copy with the new file that you extracted above

 

5) Register the new OCX file.

• regsvr32 mshflxgd.ocx
  

 

 

NOTE: I also was informed that on Vista, you need to run Regsvr32 as an Administrator, or you will get the error:  

The module “mshflxgd.ocx” was loaded but the call to DllRegisterServer failed with error code 0x8002801c.