my 5-step Flash installation workaround

Nowadays it seems that I always have to work around problems with installing Adobe Flash Player updates on Windows. I’ve had outright failures, and I’ve had the installation appear to work for IE only to break Firefox, and vice versa. And I always have multiple computers to update, whenever there’s a new version. So I’ve decided it’s time to actually document my ‘process’ for doing it, to save myself time from now on. Let me know if this tip helps you, too.

When the usual Adobe upgrade page (http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/) fails to update Flash Player on Windows:

  1. Launch favorite browser and go to http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/855/cpsid_85599.html
  2. Download both of the EXE installers  (IE/ActiveX, non-IE)
  3. Exit all browsers
  4. Run both EXE files. (Order shouldn’t matter.)
  5. Launch browser(s) and, in each, go to http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ to verify that the actual installed version is now the latest, vs. the table of versions lower on the page.

This procedure has only ever failed me at step 4, and only when remnants of previous browser usage with Flash since boot-up have somehow remained in memory. In that case, restarting my PC between steps 3 and 4 does the trick (I don’t auto-launch any browsers on boot-up).

Bonus: no need to remember to uncheck the box on the main install page to prevent installation of the (free but unwanted) McAfee Security Scan Plus.

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