Cannot uninstall Adobe Flash Player (end of life)

[Doug5C90]

I download the Uninstaller, and then it tells me that I need to close IE before it will continue to run. So I close IE (even though it has the rest of the instructions that I need to finish the un-install!!!), and the Uninstaller will not continue to run. It just sits there and stares at me mockingly.

[jeromiec83223024 · Accepted solution]

Some desktop applications will embed an IE window and invoke Flash that way.  We don't recommend it, but it happens.  If you've rebooted and run into this problem immediately when running the installer, it's something that launches at startup (screensaver app, etc.). 

The easiest thing to do is probably to just boot into Safe Mode (so nothing starts up), then just run the uninstaller package you downloaded, then reboot once it finishes.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/advanced-startup-options-including-safe-mode-b90e7808-80...

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/start-your-pc-in-safe-mode-in-windows-10-92c27cff-db89-8...

Don't worry about the rest of the instructions.  I have a set of updates in the pipeline with our docs team, but it's taking a long time for them to get posted.  Now that Flash is dead, uninstalling removes all of your preferences and data, and those extra steps just generate confusion. 

For folks on Windows 10 (I'm guessing you're on Win7 or below), our installers won't delete the ActiveX Flash Player for IE and Edge.  On Windows 8 and higher, Microsoft distributed a copy of the ActiveX Flash Player for IE and Edge via Windows Update.  The only way to modify that copy is via Windows Update, so you'll need to apply an update to remove Flash.   Running our installer on Win10 *will* delete copies of the NPAPI (Firefox) and PPAPI (Chromium, Opera) Flash Player variants, and Google Chrome 88 will automatically remove the Flash Player that Google bundles with their browser.

Microsoft Update for Removal of Flash Player for IE and Edge on Windows 8 and higher

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4577586/update-for-removal-of-adobe-flash-player