My installed Adobe Flash Player is considered as uninstalled

[anatolif37156049]

Hello, I have recently run the Vulnerability Scanner on McAfee LiveSafe and found a high-severity program update: my Adobe Flash Player was out for date. I then opened the control panel, reinstalled the old version, and installed the new version (32.0.0.114) on my PC. When I thereafter scanned my PC for new updates once again, it still required me to install the new version 32.0.0.114 (which is already installed). Any thoughts on how I can solve this?

[kglad]

[moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Installing Flash Player]

[_maria_]

32.0.0.114 is the most recent version.  It's possible there's an old version somewhere on the system, or McAfee is not reporting correctly.

Does Vulnerability Scanner on McAfee LiveSafe provide the directory path to what they are reporting as an old version?  Please go to the Flash Player Settings Manager > Updates tab and post a screenshot of the Updates tab.

To get to the Flash Player Settings Manager:

• Windows: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items > Flash Player
• Mac: System Preferences > Flash Player

Thank you.

<edited>

[anatolif37156049]

[_maria_ · Accepted solution]

Thanks for posting the screenshot.  At the time you took the screenshot 34.0.0.114 was the most recent version of Flash Player (34.0.0.142 was released earlier today).

I then opened the control panel, reinstalled the old version, and installed the new version (32.0.0.114) on my PC.

If you performed the update with the browser open, the browser most likely had the plugin loaded and the files for the previous version were marked for deletion (in the registry) upon reboot.  If you didn't reboot the system, and ran the McAfee scan it's possible McAfee detected these files (marked for deletion) and reported the old version was still installed.

If the only PPAPI-based browser you use is Chrome there is no need to install the PPAPI plugin separately as Google embeds Flash Player in Chrome and releases updates in the same cadence as Adobe.

You can try the following:

1. Download the Flash Player uninstaller, posted at Uninstall Flash Player for Windows
2. Follow the instructions in the tech note to perform a clean install.
3. At step 3.3 of the tech note instructions - do NOT delete the FlashInstall log files

After rebooting the system, Flash Player should be completely uninstalled from the system.

Run the McAfee scan - at this time, it should not report any version of Flash Player installed.

If you use a PPAPI-based browser, other than Chrome, launch the browser and navigate to https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer to download and install the PPAPI plugin and install it.