Flash won't work in Win 7

Win 7 PC with IE browser. I have installed and uninstalled Flash multiple times and cannot get it to work. The Adobe website https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player.html states: "Sorry, Flash Player is either not installed or not enabled. Please go to step 2". Step 2 is a download link, which I have used multiple times. "Manage Add-ons" indicates, after each download, that Flash is installed and enabled. Yet, virtually every webpage I pull up results in a message box stating "This webpage wants to run the following add-on: Adobe flash player from Adobe systems incorporated". Websites that require the use of Flash tell me that I need this plug in, even though it is installed.

I have downloaded the plug-in from multiple Adobe webpages, all with the same result. And I have verified that Active X filtering is turned off.