Flash.ocx is regenrating on servers even after Uninstalling Adobe Flashplayer

[karthikp78373243]

Hello Team,

I'm in weird scenario, we have uninstalled Adobe Flash players from our servers, as we don't need them, but still we can see Flash.ocx is regenerating at C:\Windows\SysWow64\flash.ocx.

Steps performed:

• Uninstalled Adobe flash player from appwiz.cpl
  delated all files related to adobe flash player including C:\Windows\SysWow64\flash.ocx  from servers.

But still we can see C:\Windows\SysWow64\flash.ocx  is getting regenerated after couple of days on servers.

Your answer will be much appreciated.

Regards,

[_maria_]

As of Server 2012, Microsoft embeds Flash Player in the browser (IE/Edge) and Flash.ocx (along with FlashUtil_ActiveX.dll and FlashUtil_ActiveX.exe) is the embedded Flash Player ActiveX component.  As Flash Player ActiveX is installed on Server 2012 (and above) via enabling Desktop Experience, have you tried disabling Desktop Experience to see if it resolves the issue for you?

If that doesn't work, I recommend contacting Microsoft for assistance, as Microsoft considers Flash Player to be a system component on the OS versions that Microsoft embeds Flash Player in the browser on and they are the ones that manage Flash Player ActiveX on those systems.

[karthikp78373243]

Hello Maria, Thank you for your reply, what do you mean by "disabling Desktop Experience" , if possible can you please let us know the steps for disabling Desktop Experience. And also how disabling Desktop Experience will resolve the issue.

[_maria_]

On Windows Server 2012 and newer Flash Player ActiveX is only added to the system by enabling Desktop Experience on the Server.  Desktop Experience is a Windows Server feature that enables certain Desktop functionality that is not available on Windows Server out-of-the box, therefore, Windows Server admins need to enable these features, via enabling Desktop Experience.  If you're seeing the Flash.ocx file, it indicates that at some point someone must have enabled Desktop Experience on the Server.  Disabling Desktop Experience should remove the Flash ActiveX files (at least it did in my testing prior to posting my comment).

I don't have instructions for enabling/disabling Desktop Experience as Flash Player ActiveX is not officially supported on those systems (even though Microsoft includes it, Adobe does not develop for, nor test, Flash Player on any Windows Server version).  You can perform an internet search for instructions on disabling Desktop Experience on the particular version of Windows Server you have.