WinXP isn't viable as a platform for using the Internet at this point, at least from a security perspective. I liked WinXP a lot, but Win7 x64 is really the minimum bar for browsing safely at this point ... We're definitely in the end-days of WinXP being remotely usable in the context of the larger ecosystem. Agree, it may be time to leave my old WinXP P3 legacy box behind and catch up a bit. But, that's another story and slightly off topic. We've made compiler upgrades over the last few months in order to pick up Microsoft's compiler-based mitigations for Spectre and Meltdown. There's a decent chance that this is what has precipitated the change. We wouldn't roll those changes back... I think that's it then. I know, thinking is not knowing .. but, if there is a decent chance that this is causing the installer to crash, I can live with that. I'll be happy to mark your answer as correct .. and go on with life! Thanks a bundle, great feedback! It's hard to know if it's the compiler mitigations, or perhaps other on-by-default optimizations in the version of the compiler that we're using that might be causing the headache on the Pentium 3. And it's irrelevant at this time too. It is what it is. Again, thanks for your comments. Postscript: I tried the Flash 30.0.0.113 .msi package and the installer advanced further than the .exe package before it stopped with an error and roll-back. Except that it didn't roll back. Instead, Flash 29 was totally removed and all the Flash 30 files were unpacked into C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash as during a normal install. Plus the .msi install process removed all entries in the registry. So, I exported the registry entry from another computer with working Flash 30 (not recommended) and imported it to XP's registry. To my surprise, Flash 30 was recognized and worked normally with Firefox. As all this was just meant to be a troubleshooting exercise, I then tried to uninstall Flash 30, but the uninstaller crashed. Interesting experience which in my view points towards a Flash 30 installer/uninstaller package issue (and not a problem with the Flash files themselves). Finally, after a manual removal of all Flash 30 "leftovers" I reinstalled Flash 29.0.0.171 without any problems at all. FWIW.
... View more