Adobe Flash Player is Not Working

TurcoLoco

02-13-2009, 04:08 PM

Symptoms:
- You get an error during the Flash player installation and installation fails.
- Flash plug-in installs without errors and Adobe even confirms that it was successfully installed:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/9749/flashproblem01bzc5.jpg (http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=flashproblem01bzc5.jpg)

But when you try to watch a video on some web site, it displays “You need to install Flash Player” message or something similar:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/7672/flashproblem01afy0.jpg (http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=flashproblem01afy0.jpg)

FIX #1:
1) Browse to “C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash” directory.
2) Double-click on the Flash update utility (example: FlashUtil9e.exe) if it is there.
3) Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the process.
4) Restart the system if prompted to do so.
5) Check to see if Flash plug-in is working. If not, proceed to Fix #2.

*************************************************

IMPORTANT PRE-FIX STEPS:

a) For the 'search and fix' part of the process you need the following free utility called AccessEnum (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897332.aspx).
b) To be on the safe side, I urge you download and backup your registry using the free utility Erunt (http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/).
c) If you have another utility you rather use to backup your registry, please do so before you proceed any further.

FIX #2
1) Run AccessEnum
2) On the right top corner you will see two button [Directory...] and [Registry...].
3) Click on Registry button.
http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/5158/flash01xs5.jpg (http://img106.imageshack.us/my.php?image=flash01xs5.jpg)

4) First select the root of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
5) Click OK and the SCAN to start the process.
6) When the scan completes, click on DENY column header to sort all Deny entries at the top (you might have to click twice to bring them all to top).
7) Under the Deny column you will see some entries, not all of them might be Flash related, you can do the following to all entries listed under Deny but technically only the Flash related ones need to be corrected (If you like expand the highlighted key and click on its sub-keys to see if there is a Flash related value/data if there was none you could skip that key). Following screenshot shows that the entry is indeed Flash related and needs to be fixed:
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6628/flash02yf9.jpg (http://img217.imageshack.us/my.php?image=flash02yf9.jpg)

8) Double-click on the first Deny entry on the list, this will automatically open Windows Registry Editor and hightlight the related key.
9) Right-click on the highlighted entry, then click on Permissions.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6042/flash03un7.jpg (http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=flash03un7.jpg)

10) A new panel for the permissions of the selected key will open up, click on Advanced button at the right bottom.
11) On the default 'Permissions' tab, under the Type header you will see the Deny entries (usually there are 2 or 3).
12) One at a time, click once on each Deny entry and either click on Remove button or hit the DEL key on your keyboard.
Important: Do not remove or modify the 'Allow' entries!!!!
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/5270/flash04zf3.jpg (http://img89.imageshack.us/my.php?image=flash04zf3.jpg)

13) When all Deny entries are gone, check the box down below that reads "Replace permission entries on all child objects with entries shown here that apply to child objects", then click OK and YES at the confirmation pop-up.
14) Click OK to close the 'Permissions' window and then close the registry editor as well.
15) Now back at the AccessEnum scan results window, double-click on the next Deny entry and follow steps 9 thru 13.
16) Do the above for all entries displayed under Deny column.
17) When done, click on Registry button again and this time browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE and click OK.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/179/hkeylocalmachinesoftwarsd8.jpg (http://img89.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hkeylocalmachinesoftwarsd8.jpg)

18) Click Scan to start the search again.
19) When the scan is done, click Deny header twice to sort the deny entries at the top and follow the steps 9 thru 13 for each listed ‘deny’ entry.
20) Once done that as well, reboot your system.
21) Then visit www.adobe.com (http://www.adobe.com/) to install Flash player.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/3740/flash06vq0.jpg (http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=flash06vq0.jpg)

22) Once Flash is installed, check to see if the problem was resolved or not:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/7127/flash07pm9.jpg (http://img89.imageshack.us/my.php?image=flash07pm9.jpg)

If you need further help, please start a new thread in the 'Universal Software' part of the forum and provide details.

Good Luck!

PS. If you would like to download these instructions as PDF file, click on the link at the bottom of this post.