Solved this already, but since the web pages I found by googling did not lead me to the answer, this is for everyone else who googles.

Server object error 'ASP 0178 : 80070005'

Server.CreateObject Access Error

The call to Server.CreateObject failed while checking permissions. Access is denied to this object.

What happened here is I had a component (in this case an ActiveX DLL) called by my web page. I had put the DLL in its own directory not under the web page structure, and granted the minimum permissions I thought would be necessary. I forgot one.

The website I set 'Application Protection' to High (Isolated). That's when I got the error.

Troubleshooting, I rolled back the website application protection to Low (IIS process), and the DLL was able to properly load. This told me the problem.

Checking permissions on my DLL, I had granted IUSR_machinename read and execute, but had to add IWAM_machinename, the user for launching new IIS processes. Once I did that, I set the site back to High (Isolated), and everything was working as expected.

Hope this helps.
Grok