# Component Categories

OLE’s component categories allow a software component’s abilities and requirements to be identified by entries in the registry. In a scenario where a container may not wish to or not be able to support an area of functionality, such as databinding for example, the container will not wish to host controls that require databinding in order to perform their job function. Component Categories allow areas of functionality such as databinding to be identified, so that the control container can avoid those controls that state it to be a requirement. Component Categories are specified separately as part of OLE and are not specific to the ActiveX Control architecture, the specification for component categories includes a set of APIs for manipulation of the component category registry keys.