Posted by Micki
Wednesday February 21st 2007, 10:58 am
Filed under: Tips & Tools
We stumbled across a blog post today that highlights a certain issue some new Vista users might be experiencing when trying to view Flash videos. It seems that some users are getting an error message instructing them to install the latest version of Flash when it’s already installed. Man, that must be annoying. Thankfully, Jason Dunn has figured out a fix and shared it on his blog:
I found the install folder for Flash:
C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash
Inside that folder, there are two files: Flash9b.ocx, the ActiveX control that IE7 uses, and FlashUtil9b.exe. I shut down IE7 then ran FlashUtil9b.exe and it said that there was an update for my version of Flash - it downloaded a new version, I rebooted the PC as it suggested, and now I can view all Flash content on YouTube and Revver as I should. What’s interesting is that the version number of Flash didn’t change. I suspect the issue is more one of registering Flash with the system properly, and Adobe has a bug in the installer. This worked for me, so I hope it will work for you!
We can’t vouch for this ourselves but if you’re having trouble, this might be a good place to start. If you have other questions or tips to share, please head on over to our forums. And thanks for the tip, Jason!
3 Comments so far
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Hi, is the core problem something like “What can cause a particular JavaScript detection script to balk in IE/Vista when the Adobe Flash Player test page shows that the current 9.0.28 version is successfully installed?”
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/welcome/
If so, then I’m not sure… what is that JavaScript detection routine testing? (I scanned source of the cited page but didn’t go through all the external .JS files.)
For Jason’s post, I’m leery… I don’t know of anything that would require users to go into their system directories, and would hesitate to recommend that others do so. It should just work, and finding the difference which prevents this would be the first step…. 
Hmm… on an off-chance… if the computer showed a dialog urging a restart, then the system should definitely be restarted… the Windows ActiveX model cannot unregister an ActiveX Control if it has already been used, and so on some occasions will show such a dialog. That’s one way I know of to get an IE installatino to not work.
tx, jd/adobe
Comment by John Dowdell 02.21.07 @ 2:47 pmHey John,
Thanks for the followup. We’re actually using a modified versoin of the UFO (http://www.bobbyvandersluis.com/ufo/) script, so the detection script is relatively common.
Comment by Asi 02.21.07 @ 3:19 pmLeave a comment
Wow. You guys are fast, I just posted that this morning.
Thanks for the link, you may want to add something about that issue to your FAQ.
Comment by Jason Dunn 02.21.07 @ 11:08 am