Guide to rolling back to an old flash player version (20.0.0.228)

[Carm01]

All,

I am going to throw together a guide to uninstalling the latest version of flash player as there have been numerous complaints of 20.0.0.267 ActiveX Variant not working, and rolling back to 20.0.0.228 working successfully. I have seen people getting the 1722 error according to this thread

I am going to go over a few things so everyone understands some technical things I am going to attempt to simplify for non tech savvy users.

Here is what you are going to need to do to properly downgrade on a Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 machines. All of this will be outlined below

1) Run Adobe Uninstaller see B

2) Install the Archived Flash Player version from Adobe archive. See C

A) There are 3 type of flash player plugins, and they all have to be installed separately, so when I get to the part about running the uninstaller remember that you will have to re-install per browser plugin type It is important to note that you can have different versions here as well because not all browsers and applications use the same plugin remember this.

     i) NPAPI - this is for Firefox most notably

     ii) ActiveX - Internet Explorer/EDGE(windows10)

     iii) PPAPI - Opera browser

B) Adobe Flash Player Uninstaller helps out a great deal when downgrading Flash Player Versions, running that prior to getting an archived version helps out a great deal. You can grab the Adobe Flash Player Uninstaller here

C) You are going to have to grab the Archived ActiveX variant from the Adobe Archive here. This is a ZIP file, so you will have to open it and I suggest using the exe as that is what one person said works that file is called: flashplayer20_0d0_228_winax.exe That is in the folder called 20_0_d0_228 inside the zip archive. NOTE: DO NOT USE THE DEBUG FOLDER

Windows 8 and 10 are a lot different and some of this may not work, however for Windows 8.X users you will have to Uninstall Windows Update KB3132372, that seems to roll it back according to one user i suggested that to. You might want to read that thread as it contains additional information, but you also have to refuse the update in the future as well. DO NOT RUN THE ADOBE UNINSTALLER AS IT WILL NOT UNINSTALL THE FILES ON THESE OPERATING SYSTEMS.

On Windows 10 it is a lot different as Automatic Updates are installed be default without any control by the user on Windows 10 Home ( the update is the same number btw ). I use an application to prevent windows updates on my Windows 10 pro machine called wushowhide.diagcab . This is provided free of charge from Microsoft. There is a great article on how to use this here, as well as the official Microsoft Download link in that article. I have no way of knowing if this works on all Windows 10 Variants, however there does not seem to say there are any restrictions for Windows 10 Home, Pro, or Enterprise Version.

Hopefully this will help out some people trying to roll back to 20.0.0.228 version. Below are some additional information that you might need

1) If you need Flash for Firefox NPAPI version the most current version is here to install directly. This is for Firefox mainly

2) IF you need to preform a clean uninstall based off you operating system, or you need to do this for multiple machine I have a clean uninstaller. To get that, click on my name in these forums, in my profile there is a sourceforge link. Click browse all files under the big green button, then choose the uninstaller only. This will remove some additional Operating system files based off your Operating system and some misc cache files. Windows 8.X and Windows 10 will only remove the cache files not the Operating system files. The clean install process is usually for Windows XP through 7, however I simplified it down to a one click BAT file for all Windows Operating systems. You might want to try this if you are having problems rolling back.

3) There have been some known old registry entries from older flash player versions that can cause conflict with newer installations on machines that have not been imaged in years or flash has not been properly uninstalled and there are residual files, etc left over, that will not be covered here as that is an advanced topic

I hope this helps out some people having issues

Best regards

[Wellnessguy]

Hi, Carm01:

This is great, but why is Adobe forcing such a roundabout way of handling this issue?

I have stuck with Windows-based systems rather than Android tablets, because Android tablets become useless bricks rather quickly. Android is customized by the manufacturer so you're stuck with only being able to update the operating system if the manufacturer supplies an update. And it's not in the interests of the manufacturer to keep doing that. They'd rather you bought another tablet!

So I've stuck with Windows, because Microsoft supports operating systems much longer than manufacturers will ever do.

But, I don't have cable, so I watch TV shows on the TV station websites. They mostly all use Adobe Flash and I've been finding that older computer systems are no longer able to play the videos.

My Lenovo Thinkpad x120 went first. I only bought it in 2011 but it no longer plays any Internet video that requires Adobe Flash.

Then my Dell Latitude E6400 stopped playing them, and that's a pretty powerful notebook - cost me a small fortune!

So how long will my HP laptop continue to work? I bought that Jan 2013. Will it stop playing Internet video with the next Flash update?

Adobe,is forcing innocent users like myself to chuck out perfectly good systems and buy new ones! - Just because they don't have the latest video hardware.

Why not just make Flash backwardly compatible? The Youtube video player (HTML 5?) allows you to choose video quality levels. So, if your system stutters on HD you can drop down to a lower quality level. Why can't Adobe adapt?

Right now, Adobe is removing one of the major reasons I've been loyal to Windows. If Adobe refuses to fix this, perhaps we should band together and get Microsoft to force Adobe back into line! Just a suggestion.

[Carm01]

In response:

1) Android and idevices all handle flash content in a different way.

2) The Android market is fragmented meaning that for a Motorola device there is the Blur overlay, Samsung has Touchwiz, HTC has sense UI.

3) what people do not realize about the Android updates is with exception of Apple, the Wireless carrier literally controls the software OTA push, not the manufacture of the device.

The carrier basically enforces 'cooperate black male' to the device manufacture saying you have to allow us to modify, accept, reject or otherwise control the update process or we will not sell your devices to our customers. Wonder why there are all those useless apps that you cannot uninstall? Don't blame the manufacture solely, blame your wireless carrier for that bloatware. Remember when iphone launched on just about every carrier except VerizonWireless? Why do you think that happened? I'll give you one guess and chances are it will be the right one. VerizonWireless eventually caved in because they were loosing tons of sales; cooperate greed !

If you are going to choose Android, choose Nexus. I literally have one that will be here today. Why? Nexus are not carrier branded phones, and will work with any carrier. You will also get updates directly from Google when they are released. Not 6 months or a year down the line. The nexus 5 was supported for about 3 years ( 2 years or less for most other device manufacture, about 5 for apple, but that is another story ). I gave up on HTC because of the carrier controlled updates, and lack of them. Awesome phones but I am not dropping over 400 every two years. Apple is nice if you believe in the Apple philosophy: We will tell you what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, AND make you pay for every little thing we can! Great phones btw, and they are really awesome. The 6S is sweet and powerful, but several things that Apple deliberately locks out that is not locked out on Android that are simply not for me. If it were not for those I would keep it.

As far as PC systems I am still rocking my i7-860 with 8 gigs of ram , currently on windows 10, installed a better power supply and upgraded my video card to replace a failing one recently. I purchased it 6 years ago, and it is like new because I image it regularly. ( wipe the OS and reinstall it basically; a little more involved though ). So a PC can last for years if you properly know how to maintain it.

As far as Adobe flash:

Its got so many nails in its coffin already, the issue is that there is so much content that uses flash for media playback and interaction that HTML5 is not fully up to the task in some of those areas. Video playback can be accomplished by HTML5 its the other stuff that is a little more difficult to reproduce in HTML5. I use a 64 bit version of Mozilla Firefox for over 90% of my browsing and Google Chrome as a secondary. I rarely use IE or EDGE if that helps you out.

Be sure to check my profile on here as it contains links to some useful flash related help that i created.

Best regards

[Wellnessguy]

Thanks, Carm:

I'm one of the few people who never had any interest in a smartphone. I have a simple paygo flip-phone that I have for emergencies only. Nobody even has the number. But I have no interest in being available to the world 24-7. When I go for a walk I want to be in peace. I ride my bike (bicycle, not motorbike) a lot and, again, I don't want to be stopping and answering the phone all the time. I like to get into that Zen mode where there's no gerbil in the wheel running in my head. My mind is hardly ticking over and I'm just enjoying the exercise and the peace.

I like being connected to the Internet at home but there's no pressing reason to have it available continuously when I'm out and about. I prefer to walk and talk and interact face to face with people.

Thanks for the info on carriers, though. I wasn't aware of their influence on phone manufacturers. But when I was talking about a tablet I meant a proper tablet, not a phone.

I've had an original X10 10" Android tablet, that went out of date almost within a year. I've had a couple of 7" Android based ones that lasted about two years but started losing functionality pretty quickly, too.

So the next tablet I bought was a 10" Acer hybrid with an i5 processor running Windows 8. That runs fine and the operating system will remain upgradable for many years. But how long will it continue to play the Adobe Flash plugin.

We cancelled cable TV about four years ago but I do like to occasionally watch TV shows over the Internet. I'm so disappointed that, like the Android tablets, my older notebooks no longer play the TV shows because the Adobe Flash plugin won't play back on them. I dread every Flash update now. I hold off as long as possible but I usually end up being forced to update because the TV station videos require the newer version of Flash.

And, as I said, I don't understand what Flash is doing that eventually stops it working on older video hardware. The videos don't play any better after an upgrade. So I'm guessing it's all to do with pushing advertising. So my system stops working because Adobe needs to handle advertising I don't want to watch  anyway! It's crazy!

Maybe I'll try a Nexus if I decide to go with Android again. But it's a lot of money for something that's going to be a brick in a year or two.

Interestingly, my old 32 bit Samsung netbook (circa 2006) won't even run Windows 7, but it plays TV over the web quite well.

Desktops don't have a problem either. My 10 year old Dell OptiPlex plays the same shows perfectly. As does a 10 year old custom built AMC based unit.

Yet my Dell Latitude E6400 notebook, with a processor at least three times faster, jerks and stutters and is unwatchable. Though it was fine a year ago.

Like I said, Adobe is writing off perfectly good laptop systems by not making Flash adaptable to such hardware.

In future I'll avoid Adobe software of any stripe! They simply don't care about their user base.