I am working with a SSTab control(Microsoft Tab ActiveX Control sp6). I like how during design time I can place controls inside 1 tab and it doesnt show in another tab.  How can I do this during run time?  I thought about just hiding the controls from the other tabs and only showing the controls that are on the tab that is in focus... but that seems a bit much.

just send all your items to the back, or move it off to a point of where it can't be seen and setting the border style to fixed single, that should work

I don't know if this is what you want, but could you place all the controls you want on it ahead of time and show/hide them, or do you need to dynamically create controls?