I tried to get educated before asking this question:
 
I am attempting to use Win32::OLE to do this. I understand that Win32::OLE uses IDispatch to make the link. Also, I know the dll in question works from VBscript (becasue another programmer showed me).
 
I registered the DLL as follows: regsvr32 mydll.dll. Seems like that went well.
 
However, when I:

use Win32::OLE;
$wd = Win32::OLE->GetObject("mydll")
     || die "Unable to load Win32::OLE" . Win32::OLE->LastError;
[download]

or

use Win32::OLE;
$wd = Win32::OLE->GetObject("mydll.dll")
     || die "Unable to load Win32::OLE" . Win32::OLE->LastError;
[download]

I get: error 0x800401e4: "Invalid syntax"
 
However when I try:

use Win32::OLE;
$wd = Win32::OLE->GetObject("c:\\windows\\system32\\mydll.dll")
     || die "Unable to load Win32::OLE" . Win32::OLE->LastError;    us
+e Win32::OLE;
[download]

I get: error 0x800401e6: "Bad extension for file"
 
I have googled every conceivable permutation of "ADO OLE ActiveX perl how to howto manual tutorial Win32::OLE Win-32", etc. and all I get back is examples of how to do something in Excel. I also looked at ActiveX on PerlMonks supersearch and dug around at Microsoft and a few other places.
 
What I am looking for is a step by step guide that will allow me to attach to the dll and converse with it.
 
Any pointers to good resources? (even if it's a book I need to buy!)
 
Thanks!