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A possible solution for people having trouble installing Flash

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  • Last reply by zrbrtr

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I've been reading through old threads to try to jog my memory about how to install Flash for Firefox. I seem to be having the same problems as in multiple closed threads - Flash claims to install, but Firefox continues merrily using the old version. None of the support answers have helped, but I do remember how I fixed it before - the Flash Installer puts its files in the wrong place and you have to manually copy them to Firefox's Plugins directory. Until the files are in the right place, the helpful suggestion to use about:addons will not work. Now if I could only remember how I figured out where Flash puts its files...

I've been reading through old threads to try to jog my memory about how to install Flash for Firefox. I seem to be having the same problems as in multiple closed threads - Flash claims to install, but Firefox continues merrily using the old version. None of the support answers have helped, but I do remember how I fixed it before - the Flash Installer puts its files in the wrong place and you have to manually copy them to Firefox's Plugins directory. Until the files are in the right place, the helpful suggestion to use about:addons will not work. Now if I could only remember how I figured out where Flash puts its files...

Chosen solution

Got it working! After installing Flash, I had to manually copy ShockwaveFlash.class, NPSWF32.dll, FlashUtil11f_Plugin.exe and flashplayer.xpt from C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash to Firefox's Plugins directory. Your filenames may be a bit different, of course, if you use a different version or OS.

Complicating matters further, Flash seems to have dropped support for older versions of Firefox. Installing the latest Flash in that way causes my browser (Firefox 9) to hang when trying to play Flash. Adobe offers no help on what version of Flash goes with what version of Firefox, you just have to look at the release dates and make a reasonable guess. Downgrading to a version of Flash released shortly after Firefox 9 was released has fixed the issue completely.

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Chosen Solution

Got it working! After installing Flash, I had to manually copy ShockwaveFlash.class, NPSWF32.dll, FlashUtil11f_Plugin.exe and flashplayer.xpt from C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash to Firefox's Plugins directory. Your filenames may be a bit different, of course, if you use a different version or OS.

Complicating matters further, Flash seems to have dropped support for older versions of Firefox. Installing the latest Flash in that way causes my browser (Firefox 9) to hang when trying to play Flash. Adobe offers no help on what version of Flash goes with what version of Firefox, you just have to look at the release dates and make a reasonable guess. Downgrading to a version of Flash released shortly after Firefox 9 was released has fixed the issue completely.