What is the last version of FlashPlayer supported by Internet Explorer version 7?

[darren_evans]

We develop an enterprise Flex application and our clients are currently using FlashPlayer 11.1.

We want to support the native right-click customisation functionality introduced in 11.2 but we also have a requirement to support IE7.

Looking through the release notes for each version, when I look at 11.2 and 11.3 I see a nice little system requirements section listing browser requirements (lovely). From 11.4 onwards the release notes system requirements section just has a link to the latest requirements which is of absolutely no use to me as I really don't need that information! From the latest release notes I see IE8 as a minimum browser requirement.

What was the last FlashPlayer version supported by IE7?

[jeromiec83223024]

Users should always use the latest available version of Flash Player.  Each update includes important security and stability updates, and end-users place themselves at risk by running outdated versions.

We're not going to specifically break support for IE7, but we're no longer testing it or prioritizing it from a support perspective.  It's time for your clients to start planning a migration strategy.

[jeromiec83223024]

It's worth pointing out that enterprise administrators can add either meta tags or HTTP headers to force IE11 into compatibility mode.  Usually you can just change the web server configuration without having to modify the code of the running application.  If they're hanging on to Win7 because of legacy applications, they're missing out on a lot of security enhancement in the newer IE versions, and they really don't need to.

The following document might be useful:

Specifying legacy document modes (Internet Explorer)

[darren_evans]

In an ideal world we could dictate that.

However, our clients (for this specific application) are all the NHS trusts in the UK of which there are ALOT. We have no ability to get them on to the latest versions of Windows or IE and certainly not together. They are a very slow and lumbering beast when it comes to IT. And, we are not talking about legacy Windows 7 OS environments here, we are talking hundreds of thousands of PCs still running as low as Windows XP. Last year was a milestone in that we no longer had to support IE6!

Each organisation is totally different too, some have a set of hardware and software that is certified and will not move up to newer versions unless it goes through some sort of certification. We had a lot of trouble when the certified version of IE was 6 (as we all know that was a terrible version!!!). I totally understand this mentality though, they simply cannot risk things going wrong when a new update is automatically taken and breaks everything. People's lives are at risk here. Not all of them are like this though and some can be keen to take newer updates for the exact reasons you have pointed out.

We do have an opportunity to move them up to a newer version of FlashPlayer with our next release though. Inline with your comments, I have proven that IE7 works with FlashPlayer 15.0.0 (even though the release notes say the minimum is IE8). So I am tempted to say the minimum version supported is 15.0.0 from our next release.

[jeromiec83223024 · Accepted solution]

Understood.  Given NHS's current upgrade strategy, it sounds like there are serious risks to the continued availability of your application to all clients.

It is likely that we will drop XP support in the not-too-distant future, and I would highly recommend that you start working with your clients to seriously consider either transition (either to a current OS , away from Flash, or to some intermediary solution like Citrix/VMWare) or otherwise make contingency plans for the day that Flash no longer works on XP.  We seriously considered dropping support for XP along with Microsoft earlier in 2014, and I would absolutely not expect it to continue to be supported past 2015.

Like the old Internet Explorers, it's unlikely that we would break Flash on XP explicitly, but it's unlikely that we would make fixes in the event that it breaks.  If it was catastrophically broken, we would probably just block installation to XP in newer installers.  To be completely transparent, we're not even allowed to hook up XP machines inside our offices at this point, so we're really not testing.

We have two options that might be useful in this scenario:

• The current release
• The Extended Support Release
  • Provided as pain-relief to enterprise system administrators
  • Old release, patched with the latest security fixes. 
  • Monthly security updates, in tandem with the general release
  • Typically runs 6-18 months between major version changes, just depending on the complexity in keeping that branch alive.
  • Administrator needs to manage the distribution, we support most standard software management schemes.
  • Insulates from risk of new feature work, but not a substitute for pre-deployment sanity testing (some security changes can be invasive)

Administrators will need to sign our free distribution agreement to distribute Flash Player on their own: 

Adobe Flash Player Distribution | Adobe

System Administrator's Guide:

Adobe Flash Player Administration Guide for Flash Player | Adobe Developer Connection

Finding the ESR:

Where can I find the "Extended Support Release" of Flash Player for Windows or Macintosh?

[darren_evans]

Very useful information there Jeromie. Thanks for that!