Flash doesn't show up in add-ons after install (IE 11 on a shared VM)

Report · Dec 14, 2016

I share a test Windows 2012 VM server with a co-worker. It runs IE 11. We installed Adobe Flash Player 22 NPAPI. When my co-worker displays currently loaded add-ons in IE 11, she sees Shockwave flash object under Adobe Systems Incorporated and she is able to get to our website which requires flash. When I use the same browser, I don't see any Shockwave add-on. Why is Shockwave an add-on for her and not for me?

Thank you,

Kevin

Report · Dec 14, 2016

Hi,

The NPAPI plugin is for Firefox browser on Windows. ActiveX plugin is provided by the Microsoft with Windows updates. Please, install any pending updates over your system.

Thanks!

Report · Dec 15, 2016

What do you mean when you say to install any pending updates over my system? The most recent Active X install package I see available at my installation is "install_flash_player_22_active_x" and it appears to already exist.

Adobe Flash Player 22.0 Installer

Your Microsoft Internet Explorer Browser includes the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player built-in. Windows Update will inform you when new versions of the Flash Player are available.

I believe that we already have everything we need installed on this VM since my co-worker can view the website content that requires flash from this same VM and the same browser. It has to be something unique to ME.

Kevin

Report · Dec 15, 2016

We don't technically support the Windows Server variants. That said, we don't explicitly block them.

Flash Player is a built-in component of Internet Explorer on Windows 8 and higher. As such, Flash Player is distributed directly by Microsoft on those configurations, via Windows Update. There are no Adobe-provided installers for those platforms (and we couldn't make one if we wanted to, due to OS restrictions... ActiveX controls really don't exist after Windows 8, which is why Flash is now baked in).

So, our recommendation is to run Windows Update on your machine and apply any pending updates. If there are no updates available via Windows Update for the system, you could try grabbing a copy of the installer using Internet Explorer on a supported flavor of Windows where Flash Player is still discrete install (i.e. Win7) and try running it, but I'm not sure if that would work.

As Windows Server 2012 is not a supported target, this isn't something that we're likely to fix, and probably isn't an area of focus for the IE team. In general, the best practice is to browse the web on a desktop system and only use the browser on a server for necessary local configuration tasks where services have HTML-based control panels, etc.