Corrupt Flash Player install after IE 7 upgrade

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I’ve been seeing a few mails about this since the Internet Explorer update was released, so I wanted to post some info about it to maybe help the people having issues.

The complaint generally goes something like this:

A user has Flash Player 9 (or other version) installed on their system and everything works fine with IE6. That user then runs the IE7 update and their computer stops showing Flash content on sites like YouTube or MSN video and other Flash sites. However, if the user goes to some other sites with Flash content, the content will play just fine, even if the site requires the Flash 9 Player.

I’m not sure of the official cause for this, and am still doing some research into what causes it, but a first guess I have is that when you upgrade from IE7, the browser install is not correctly reinstalling your existing Flash Plugin, so scripts that check for the Flash Player are failing, but since the plugin file is there, if you visit a site that does not use a detection script (like SWFObject) you will see the Flash content just fine.

There may not be a solution to this for the sites using detection scripts – they rely on a series of Windows registry entries that seem to be missing after an IE7 upgrade.

For users, here is a fix that seems to work well:

  1. Quit all open programs. This step is important because other programs may be using the Flash Player, and if they are, the uninstaller will fail silently.
  2. Run the Adobe Flash Player Uninstaller.
  3. Reinstall your Flash player.

If you are still having problems after running the uninstaller and reinstalling the plugin, please post a comment with your system setup and other relevant details. (And remember, sometimes a system restart can make a difference with problems like this, so try that first).

UPDATE (1-8-2007): Added a new step 1.

221 thoughts on “Corrupt Flash Player install after IE 7 upgrade”

  1. Just confirming that the installer @ http://www.softwarepatch.com/internet/flash.html solved my issue of Flash player not working in IE7.

    Notes:
    *I didn’t have to run the un-installer or run the program as an administrator.
    *I did get a couple file not found errors from the softwarepatch site, keep trying till you get to the page.
    *Saying things like “just switch to Firefox, I hate M$,” doesn’t help… I use FF for everything, but still need to develop for all browsers…

  3. What an overwhelming page! Lots of problems with the flash plugin… So I just got my laptop back after 6 weeks. Hard drive replaced, I’ve had to reinstall programs. So, I have uninstalled and reinstalled the flash plugin quite a few times. Still when I go to a site like mtv.com it states that I need to install the newest flash player plugin (which I’ve already done!). After installation I see the animation that states the flash player plug-in has been successfully installed. Youtube and myspace videos appear fine, whereas when I try to catch up on the new music/dance moves on mtv.com, it states I have to install the newest flash plugin (which I’ve already done!).

    I’ve spent almost 2 weeks trying to find the solution on the internet for this problem. I even installed firefox, still the same problem. Erased the history, cookies, cache files….. too many restarts! It won’t be the end of the world if I can not resolve this, but would love to catch up on the new dance moves (especially since I don’t have cable). Please help!

  4. Anyone try the window error check?

    Mycom > right click on C: > property > tools tab > on the Error-cheacking hit Check Now > check both Automatically fix… and Scan for and attempt recovery….> start

    If it asks you to do the scan after re-start just say ok.
    And restart your computer.

    I got the same problem with flash. But mine was not caused by IE it was the FF that messed up my pc! After I updated firefox, my flash pluck in was somehow messed up.
    Both IE and FF couldn’t play flash!!! I reinstall-restart-reinstall-restart the flash player many time, nothing seemed to work.

    I did what I said above, and it is working now.

  5. THIS IS THE SOLUTION USED BY MICROSOFT SUPPORT!

    This pained me for weeks. And I tried everything I read online. The only way I got it fixed was by finally calling Microsoft and getting support.

    They led me to their IE Tools page here:

    http://sivabala76.googlepages.com/home

    Click the link IE DLL Files. Let the cmd window come up and do it’s thing. Once that’s finished, reinstall flash player by clicking the “Flash Player 9.0.28.0” link and it will work.

  9. Thanks all for the help but NOTHING on this page solved the problem for me including Christian Larsen’s advice.

  10. Just a message to say thanks to Christian Larsen. I’d been getting very frustrated by this, but at last Flash is recognised by websites.

  11. dear
    i purchased the monoslide show and i am trying to view it on the internet explorer. i donwloaded a zip file with a swf file and a xmlfile in it. when i click on the index file which is a internet explorer file i get this Please install Flash® and turn on Javascript. i installed flash and java is on but i dont know what is wrong. i am using windows vista with pentium 4 computer so please tell me what i can do to fix this.

  12. I was having problems where youtube was telling me my javascript was turned off or I needed to update to Adobe Flash Player 9. I went to my Internet Options and turned java back on. Worked for about a half hour. So I went to Adobe.com to download the latest version, but when I went there nothing popped up to download it, and there was nowhere to click to download it from the page. I got aggrivated after awhile because I kept changing my Internet Security Options so the window to download would pop up, but still nothing. I then tried to restore my computer to a point when it was working correctly. It worked until you restarted or turned off the computer. Okay now this is how I fixed mine….
    I have Windows Vista, my computer came with McAfee. I would have little bubbles telling me I have errors or what not, but everytime Id click the bubble to load McAfee only the border of the box was showing, nothing on the inside for options or even details. Well I got tired of its bubbles and it never loading so all I did was remove it from my computer. Apparently it was part of my Internet Security, so thats what was stopping me from viewing videos or checking my emails. Hopefully this kinda helps anyone, if not I understand how irritating it is.
    Have a nice day! =D

  13. Does anyone know if this affects flash’s ability to get the version through AS? I’m trying to figure out how I can solve thise problem (asking website visitors to uninstall and install Flash isn’t an option). The only solutions seems to be using a secondary catch were I push users to a page where I embed a movie without checking player version, then have that embeded movie check the flash version again and if it’s still to low do something, but if it isn’t too low go back to the original page with version detection disabled.

  14. geoken,

    Yes, the Flash Player returns the correct version once it is embedded. For YouTube.com, we implemented an extra check that always embeds a small invisible swf that will check for the flash version if the first swf isn’t written.

    This ensures that everyone with Flash Player installed (even if it’s a corrupt install) can see the videos.

  15. I have been having this same issue. It is now affecting my transcender software! It keeps telling me that Flash is not installed yet I have visited the Adobe website and confirmed that it is. (Even though Flash enabled video sites still do not work) I have tried jumping through every hoop I could find on the web and no luck. I was able to view YouTube vids by selecting the old version, but MetaCafe vids do not show up at all. And nothing I do can convince transcender that Flash is installed! It seems awfully drastic to reformat the box just because of buggy software. Any word on whether this is some sort of rootkit or trojan that has used Flash as an entry point? That would explain the “silent failures” of the uninstall…

  16. Every time I got to a site that requires adobe flash player I have to download it again. Shouldn’t it just download initially and stay downloaded.

  17. Christian Larsen’s post also sorted it for me too. Thanks Christian. Everyone just follow it step-by-step. Remember – NO such thing as Can’t.

  18. Thanks a ton. It worked fine for me.
    And yeah for those who still can’t make it happen, reboot just after uninstallation, and the continue to install.
    Cheer!

  19. the amount of money abode (sic) wants for flash encoding now…. it
    solidifies my encouragement of people not to use it at all.
    my latest guess is that the ATI card that some of us with real issues have
    combined with flash9 and IE7 is enough to curdle any web builder’s brains.

  21. NOTHING on this page solved the problem for me including Christian Larsen’s advice. I cannot run flash player with internet explorer, but on AOL it works fine. Sony support suggested trying a different browser. I never would have thought that something that doesn’t work with IE would work with AOL. Go figure. Either adobe or microsoft needs to come up with a universal fix. I have wasted too much time on this. I’m DONE!!

  24. Hey Christian’s instructions worked. I spent months on this thing and presto it works. Thanks

  25. Just follow Christian’s instructions, and it should work fine. Remember! There’s no such thing as can’t! Can do, Must Do, Will do!

  30. I have tried the all the above and still can’t get an error saying I need to download Flash from youtube. I am having the same problem with IE7 and FF.

  37. I came to this problem late — wow, what a lot of frustration reading the comments! The adobe link from Michele fixed a week of installing / un-installing and trouble shooting on my part. Glad I finally found this site.

  38. Of course FF is the superior browser but telling a web developer to just use FF is not helpful since the majority of people out there are ignorantly using IE and we must design for the majority of people. Asking this majority to uninstall/reinstall etc. is impractical since most won’t bother. So since we want the majority of viewer to see our Flash we must now revert back to the WC3 unaccepted nonsense because more and more people are upgrading to IE7. It’s an ugly situation thanks to Microsoft.

  43. Problems in IE7 in WINXP pro sp2 :
    I have uninstalled Flash player using the uninstaller.
    I have tried adobe online upgrade but the process stopped in the middle.
    So I found a standalone installer. There are 2. I was told the 9.0.47 version is already expired and I used a newer version BUT…
    Error 1904 happened while using the latest standalone installer.
    I guess there is a registry problem, so I run the SubinACL provided in adobe’s site. Result : Not working.
    Then I found another tool called Dial-a-fix which can repair the Registry Permission. Result : Not working.
    Any more suggestion? or the Conclusion is IE7 does not support Flash Player 9 normally. (The OS is windows XP pro)
    Firefox works fine except a few minor problems like cache not working normally.

  44. I had the same problem as you and tried all the above solutions. At first instance, it seemed like nothing worked until I stumbled across the Tools –> Manage Add-Ons –> Enable or Disable Add-ons in IE7. A quick look at it showed that Flash had indeed successfully installed, but was disabled for some reason. I just enabled it and hey presto, everything came back to normal. I don’t know which of the above solutions worked in my case, but I thought you should check that option before you give up.

  46. I had the same problem.Flash player would not download correctly. Nothing worked for 3 days of trying options until I trashed IE and went to Mozilla.Within 2 seconds flash player downloaded and played fine.

  50. None of these tips have worked for me. None! I still end up having to user Firefox to use the maps on Weather.com. Annoying!!!!

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