Uninstall Adobe Flash Player
Harold Yengo
Since Flash Players most recent vulnerability has been posted, the security team at my company has asked me (the System Center Admin) to uninstall all previous versions of Flash player (= 18.0.0.194). Going from having no Flash Player management to some management has been a gigantic PIA! This page Uninstall Flash Player Windows says to run the uninstaller and then go manually remove the files, they don't mention that there are registry keys that also need to be removed and that you cant manually remove anything without taking over ownership from "Trusted Installer" and assigning "full control" to another user or group in the security GUI. REALLY Frustrating and I cant do that for over 2000 computers.
Ok Enough griping. I need help removing the previous versions first. The common thread on the internet and Adobe Support seems to be to download the most recent Uninstall_Flash_Player.exe and use the -uninstall switch to run silently. This seems to have inconsistent results at best.
I have a Win 8.1 test machine with Flash 17.0.0.188 on it and when I run the uninstaller, it completes just fine (no errors), but nothing has changed. Registry entries are still there, files are still in C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash. Only running user processes were regedit, file explorer and powershell, so no flash dependent applications.
On my Win 7 box, the uninstaller removed the registry values tied to the keys, but not the keys them selves and also remove most but not all the files under C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash, but not the directory its self.
Also, files inside - C:\Windows\(System32 or syswow64 )\Macromed\Flash which will remain like this are the Flash Player Install log file used to log all installation related data and the update configuration file (mms.cfg) containing the update procedure information to be followed during update workflow. Feel free to delete these files are they are only for reference purposes and are re-written during every clean installation.
The problem with your recommendation of Silent install command line argument doesn't work Flash Player 10.1, is that it is designed for single computer use. I need to detect if Flash is installed, what version is installed and uninstall if necessary on over 2000 computers. As I indicated in my first post, the Uninstall_Flash_Player.exe is not working reliably.
Using the FlashUtil.exe with -uninstall switch is problematic across so many machines because Adobe has changed the FlashUtil name with almost every version that has come out (IE FlashUtil64_17_0_0_190_ActiveX.exe, FlashUtil64_18_0_0_194_ActiveX, FlashUtil_ActiveX). Would you want to manually check over 2000 machines to find out which one it has to run the -uninstall switch? And what if that user used the .MSI to install? The -uninstall command does not work with .msi installed flash per the web site you suggested.
Per your question about the registry entries, that is the only reliable way I have found so far to determine if flash player is installed and what version of flash player is installed. Trying to check the file system is impractical due to the shear amount of different names Adobe used for the same file across so many versions and number of computers.
Per your questions to "why remove the registry entries and files during uninstall", from a System Admin's point of view it is sloppy and rude of a software company to leave extraneous files on the hard drive and unused registry entries to clog up a computer after the application has been "uninstalled". Sadly even Adobe recommends a manual removal of files left over after the uninstaller fails to do so in Uninstall Flash Player Windows but it sure isn't easy to do.
I have hundreds of Windows 7 machines that I want to uninstall Adobe Flash Player silently, without the user intervention. I read several forums , saying use the -silent switch with uninstall_flash_player.exe in a command prompt, but it doesn't work. If I go to C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash and run the file FlashUtil64_18_0_0_194_ActiveX, it comes with the following message:
First of all, my apologies for responding to your comment. Thank you so much, this worked like a charm. I couldn't figure that -uninstall command except for the fact that I was using it with different uninstallers for each versions with additional switches like -activex etc. I tested it and verified it and got my task executed perfectly over 800 machines. Thanks again.
My husband has Mac OS Catalina version 10.15.7. He has tried unsuccessfully to uninstall Adobe Flash Player. When he clicks on it, it asks for administrator and password. It even prompts hint for the password and he keeps trying it. I don't recall that the Adobe Flash Player on my Mac required that. Anyway, is there any other way to force the uninstallation of it?
Thanks...I meant the Dock. I tried the system pref and delete but to no avail. So, do you think I have the fake Flash? My husband can't register on webinars etc as when he tries, it pops up twice, flashes and then closes.
You are the man Wesil! I plopped that code into a batch file, deployed it to a few test clients using Desktop Authority and it worked! Also, I was able to deploy an updated version of Flash to those machines using SCCM and Flash actually worked unlike previous attempts!
I have used psexec with cmd scripts to install/uninstall/update all kind of software as long as it has a silent option. The script copies the package to the client, runs it with psexec with the /s (system account option), then removes the file copied. I have run the Adobe flash uninstaller this way for botched flash installs. May need to run it twice and maybe with a reboot after each to be sure it completes.
I have downloaded Uninstall Adobe Package to uninstall any Adobe flash player from the endpoints but when I create Fixlet in IBM BigFix Console and execute the action.
Action is getting executed but it is not able to uninstall the Adobe Flash player.
I know there is the manager in the Utilities folder, and you can uninstall it with that. But this does not look scriptable to me. And I need a deployable method as there are about 300 Macs with it on.
Has anyone tested this yet? Here are some questions I have about this:
Does this block flash content from running in browsers? If not, how would I go about doing that?
Does this script need to be run on a continual basis? It seems like its based on the logged in user so it should run continually whenever a new user/different user is logged in? Maybe have it set to run "Once per user"?
Anyone have anything to report about their experiences with this?
@sanbornc
With no Flash player installed, Apps like Safari will not run any Flash content. However Google Chrome has an inbuilt extension for running flash content, for us this is not turned on by default so Chrome will ask each time to run the extension. If you are running Google admin to manage your google accounts, you can use that to stop the extension from in there.
I've created a smart computer group to show how many Macs have Flash installed, luckily for us we have just moved to Jamf so all our Macs have pretty much been Erased therefore we only have a small number of Macs with Flash installed (Mainly my test Macs). For my settings on the Flash smart group i've used Application Title is Adobe Flash Player Install Manager.app and this has pulled back all Macs with Flash installed.
does anyone know if the rtroutron adobe flash player uninstall script is 100% silent? should the adobe flash player popup appear if a user is logged in at the time the script runs? logged in on another test laptop to see if this popup happens again .
@tcandela It was 100% silent for me. The check portion at the bottom is probably what you're seeing when the install manager is running. I used an extension attribute to determine if it was installed and created my smart group based on that data.
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Analyzer works in conjunction with flash player and unfortunately, there is no possible way out here. We have analyzer similar reporting and managing tool called GMS which also uses flash till version GMS 9.2 and this is fixed from version 9.3. With analyzer the latest version is 8.5 and it doesn't work without flash.
The replacement for Analyzer is Analytics 2.5 on prem with Syslog, soon to be updated to 3.1 I believe, not sure why SonicWall have not told you this, N.B. afaik this is only for Virtual appliances ( Hyperv & ESXi ) not Windows.
We have flash player on our windows servers and I was assigned to uninstall them, but the catch here is that I can't use any external software therefore I can't download Flash Player Uninstaller provided by Adobe,
we have a tool which scans servers for vulnerabilities. i have at least 20 servers which have adobe flash vulnerability. when i login to couple of servers i don't see adobe flash installed in add/remove programs. how do i remove adobe flash from these servers.
I want to have another browser, in case some problem comes up and the advice is to try another one.
I have Beta Edge (Version 88.0.705.29) installed. (I think it was installed some time before Chredge was officially released, perhaps when Legacy Edge asked if I wanted to try it.) Does Beta Edge have its own rendition of Flash Player? If so, how do I tell if Flash is disabled there (or alternatively, how do I disable it there)?