How to Install Flash in Vista w/ Chrome Browser??

[Guest]

Acer Aspire Laptop

Win Vista 32 Home Premium

Chrome Browser v# 49.0.2623.112 m

Pepperflash v# 21.0.0.213

I use Win Vista w/ Google Chrome browser.  It no longer receives updates from Chrome so PepperFlash is out of date. I've downloaded the latest Flash

from Adobe, and run the install. It never shows up on the Chrome Plugins page. I've cleared cache, disabled PepperFlash plugin, disabled Native Client plugin,

restarted browser and computer, searched for it elsewhere on computer, etc.. Right now, just a yes or no answer would do. Can I update to newer FlashPlayer

without going through Chrome to do it? Google is no help on this. Upgrading OS isn't an option, or answer.

Thank you.

[SatinderBains]

The Google Chrome browser includes Adobe Flash Player built-in. Accordingly, it's not necessary for Chrome to download Flash Player separately. Following link would be useful Flash Player with Google Chrome

[Guest]

The Chrome browser is no longer supported for Vista and therefore the pepperflash version is not operable.  The user is asking how to overcome that. Surprised at your respons

[SatinderBains]

Thanks "no one", Kevin you can choose to upgrade the OS or may go for other browsers which get updates for Vista.

[Guest]

Again, surprised at your response.  So, as a representative of Adobe you are stating that users of the Vista operating system who choose to use Chrome are unable to use Adobe Flash?  That users of Chrome have no choice but to use their built-in version?  So, you as a representative of Adobe are saying that Adobe does not support the Vista operating system and Chrome?  Are you sure that is a true statement?

Thank you.

[SatinderBains · Accepted solution]

That was for novice users, to use flash. Advanced users can follow these steps

Go to https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/​ page and select windows 7/XP option in step 1 and FP for Opera and Chromium- PPAPI in step 2

Download and install Flash Player.

Then open chrome and type chrome://plugins and click on details option on the right side.

Open the location of Adobe Flash Player given for the plugin(eg: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\PepperFlash\21.0.0.213\pepflashplayer.dll).

Then go to C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash, you will find pepflashplayer<version>.dll there. Copy the .dll and go to the chrome plugin location and place the .dll in place of old .dll and rename it to pepflashplayer.dll

Restart your browser and you will be able to use the latest Flash Player.

Thanks

[Guest]

Thank you. That's what I was looking for. I did note that after making the change, when I went to "chrome://plugins" it still showed the older version number. Going to Adobe's website and using the "show what version is installed" tool, it said that I was using the newer version of FlashPlayer. Apparently your fix did the trick. Thx again.

[Chungalin]

I’ve made it another way. I’ve concluded that Chrome doesn’t allow Flash plugin to be updated independently of main application. So, if you (still) use Windows XP or Vista and you aren’t allowed to update from last compatible version (49.0.2623.112), then you can’t update flash plugin from included version (21.0.0.213).

This is the official version, BUT, here comes the hack.

Install latest Flash Player via web installer. At this moment is 27.0.0.170, but this may work for future updates. You will find latest files and plugins at this folder:

C:\Windows\system32\Macromed\Flash\

Now copy pepflashplayer32_27_0_0_170.dll and manifest.json from there to folder:

C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\49.0.2623.112\PepperFlash\

Delete pepflashplayer.dll file and rename the new DLL file to this name.

Now you can start Chrome and it’ll seem that nothing has changed. You’ll receive the same message "Adobe Flash Player was blocked because it is out of date". If you check chrome://components, still shows "pepper_flash - Version: 21.0.0.213". Same for chrome://plugins. But if you allow the plugin to "Run this time" and check Flash version online you’ll see that it’s actually using the new version! That’s because, as I said before, plugin version number is hardcoded into Chrome executable:

C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\49.0.2623.112\chrome.dll

If you just edit this DLL file with an hexadecimal editor, you can find string "21.0.0.213" and replace it with actual version: "27.0.0.170" (remember that both strings must be the same length!). After this, no out-of-date warning anymore, and chrome://components and chrome://plugins show correct version.

If you don’t know how to hexedit a file, this hack is not for you, or you should learn how to do it in another place.

[jeromiec83223024]

You might actually be able to do this without editing the binary by launching Chrome with the --ppapi-flash-version flag:

https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/

That said, you're still missing a huge number of security fixes in the browser.  You'd be better off running something current that still provides security updates for your OS, like Firefox.

Even if that machine isn't used for something sensitive, if it's connected to your network and compromised, it gives attackers a foothold behind your firewall from which to launch attacks against the other machines on your network. 

[Chungalin]

Thanks. I’ve been experiencing with the command line flags you’ve pointed and I’ve been able to make it work without patching any binary file, just adding these flags to Chrome shortcut:

--disable-bundled-ppapi-flash --ppapi-flash-path="C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash\pepflashplayer32_27_0_0_183.dll" --ppapi-flash-version=27.0.0.183

First flag is just for preventing Chrome to keep showing the bundled Flash version in chrome://components.

Regarding general security concerns, this is not a forum to discuss these matters, and I won’t justify myself. Security is more than just updating software (and hardware!!) to keep inside mainstream.

[jeromiec83223024]

The forums are here as a community resource, and the discussion here will be referred to by hundreds of other people.

You're always welcome to ignore our guidance.  I'm not personally invested in the outcome of your individual choice, and I certainly don't need a justification.  I'm just trying to be helpful.  As long as you're capable of realistically assessing your risk in the context of the current operational environment, great.  That's actually why I'm happy to throw some tips your way.

What I'm more concerned with, is making sure that folks that read this thread don't interpret the existence of a workaround as a tacet recommendation for staying on an unpatched operating system and browser.  For most people, that's absolutely the wrong choice.  As long as folks employing these kinds of workarounds are deploying them while fully informed of the risks (or at least with the notion that they might want to better understand those risks before proceeding), then I feel like we've fulfilled our obligation to the larger community.  That's really all I'm trying to get at.

[sdfox7]

In June 2017 I posted a comprehensive step-by-step guide (with pictures) on how to update Flash Player (PepperFlash) for Google Chrome on Windows XP.

Part of that solution includes changing the version number on the folder

C:\Documents and Settings\Stephen Fox\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\PepperFlash\28.0.0.137

(​You must replace "Stephen Fox" above with whatever the name of your user account name is.)

After pasting the updated file in that folder, the version number must be updated, otherwise the chrome:\\plugins flag will not correctly detect the correct version of the plugin that is inside the folder.

Here is what I believe to be the simplest procedure for updating Adobe Flash Player for Google Chrom...