Error message on Flash Player 9

This is a known issue that I"m currently working on. The cause of the problems is that old screen savers (usually made with Flash MX or earlier) are looking for the file 'flash.ocx'. That used to be the name of the Flash Player ActiveX control.
But the name changed with Flash Player 8, and that ocx is no longer there. So when these screen savers try to start they throw this error.

(MicMac63's issue is -entirely- different, and he should open a support case..)

We think that more of these errors are starting to pop up as a result of Microsoft reolling out this fix (" APSB06-03 Flash Player Update to Address Security Vulnerabilities" at
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/security/security_zone/apsb06-03.html).

This is a secure version of Flash Player 6 which they pushed out to the world via autoupdate a few months ago. The microsoft update changes the name of flash.ocx , and locks the control for security reasons.

ScreenTime (a tool commonly used to make Windows screensavers from Flash SWF files) has always had issues similar to this (documented here:
http://www.screentime.com/faqs/ScreenTime_F/technote202.html)

So any screen saver built with ScreenTime (and possibly other screen saver tools) using Flash MX can have this problem. They're coded to look for flash.ocx.

So what can you do to fix it? Well, we're not entirely certain what the SAFE solution is yet.

There is an existing workaround you can use, but it has potential problems:
1. Copy: "...windows/system32/macromed/flash/flash9b.ocx"
2. Paste a copy of flash9b.ocx then...
3. RENAME: the COPIED FILE to "flash.ocx"
(IMPORTANT: do not delete the original flash9b.ocx just make a copy of named "flash.ocx")

BUT......

First, if you copy/paste Flash9b.ocx and rename it, the Flash Player uninstaller will not remove the renamed 'flash.ocx'.

Second, this leaves you with a possibly more serious second problem. You've now created an unlocked, insecure version of the Flash Player activeX control on your machine.

We're working on finding out what the safest solution is. Obviously switching to a more recent screensaver is one simple way to resolve the problem. But we're going to see what else we can find out and we'll post that to technotes when we have more info.