Once you have that key deleted, the next step is to install the older version, which you can find previous version installers on Adobe’s Archived Flash Player version page. I have not tested it but supposedly if you use the official Flash Player Uninstaller, it will automatically remove the SafeVersions key. Once I deleted the Macromedia key from the registry, the older installer was able to proceed.
On the client’s computer, the versions up to 18.0 were listed and version 18.0 had a different data for its value, seemingly denoting it as the current version. You can see the older versions denoted with (hexadecimal) all F’s to denote that they are not allowed to install. Once Flash Player was uninstalled the SafeVersions key was the only location with values under Macromedia.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Macromedia\FlashPlayer\SafeVersions HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Macromedia\FlashPlayer\SafeVersionsĪnd, for 64-bit Windows, you also have this location: Sure enough, I found a location in the Registry: I went ahead and uninstalled the Flash Player NPAPI version as well to make it easier to identify the remnants. This happened after uninstalling Flash Player ActiveX, so there must have been something left behind. The old Flash Player installer somehow knew that there is a newer version available, so it aborts the install.
Please visit the Player Download Center to obtain the latest, most secure version. The version of Adobe Flash Player that you are trying to install is not the most current version. When trying to run the older version installer, you are greeted with an error that states:
Note that this was on Windows 7, which does not have Flash Player bundled with Windows Updates as in Windows 8+. They were running the latest version of Adobe Flash Player 18.0 and wanted to try uninstalling the ActiveX version of Flash Player to install an older version. A web-based application that they use for monitoring had stopped working recently and one of the applications that had updated since it was last known to be working was Adobe Flash Player. Such was the case recently with a client. However, there is the rare instance where you need to test something out.
Due to its history of security and stability problems, users on the desktop are still encouraged to always update to the latest version.Given the frequent updates and security vulnerabilities with Adobe Flash Player, I would always recommend running the latest version of Flash Player. Adobe announced the end of Flash for mobile devices in late 2011. However, with the advent of HTML5, Adobe Flash is in decline. Without it, many videos and games cannot be displayed in the browser. No additional installation is necessary for Google Chrome which includes its own edition maintained by Google.Īdobe Flash player is still an essential part of today's web browsing experience. One, called Adobe Flash Player ActiveX, is only for the use within Microsoft Internet Explorer, while the other, Adobe Flash Player Plugin, is for the use in other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox. On Windows, there are two separately available editions of Adobe Flash Player. It is not available within the browser on Apple's iOS mobile devices (iPhone, iPad), where Apple disallows it citing security and stability reasons. Flash Player is often used to display videos, games, and advertisements.Īdobe Flash Player is available for many platforms and browsers, including Windows, MacOS X, Linux, and several mobile device operating systems such as Android. It was initially developed by Macromedia, which was purchased by Adobe in 2005. Since its inception in 1996, Adobe Flash Player has become a quasi-standard for the display of video content on the web.