Win7 IE11 Adobe Flash Woes

We don’t shut-down and restart our computers very often.  The longer you leave it on, the more seems to be wrong with it.  Video playback problems, Internet Explorer not responding, blank pop-ins / pop-overs, otherwise totally annoying “movie ads” play just fine then a message that “your video” could not play (helpful message that says ERROR and nothing else) or that “Your browser does not support…”  Windows 7, 64-Bit, Internet Explorer (IE) 11, Adobe Flash Player something-or-other (it seems there’s a new one every minute).

This is also happening on Windows 8.1.  So, we restart the computer, everybody wants to update everything, wait for it…  then, wait some more.  Patience is more than a virtue at startup.

And then, waited (a lot!), Task / Notification “Area” says that an Update (Flash) is available, click… BOOM!  Adobe site, no thank you to chrome, slider/progress bar, if you have trouble click here… click… Internet Explorer explodes, checks for solutions, reloads the page… LOOP.  Yay!  The return of the Adobe Flash (maybe) 12-15 or 16 Installer problems.  Dear friend (IE, Adobe Installer Bug) we didn’t miss you.

The “workaround” (not fix):  Close IE, Task Manager (taskmgr.exe) to be sure, Internet Options from Control Panel, clear history/cache, Privacy tab and TURN OFF the Pop-up Blocker, restart the computer (if you want to be 100% sure), Internet Options again and make sure Pop-up Blocker isn’t magically back on, IE and go directly to adobe.com (if you have a ‘flash enabled’ Home/Start Page type it in the ‘search/address bar’), bottom-right corner click the Flash link…

Back to: un-[x] (or No Thank You) to chrome, toolbars, special offers and bundles, Install… today was version 22.0 – Done!

Close all IE windows again, Internet Options again, TURN ON the Pop-up Blocker.

All is well.  Those previous video problems, informative (sarcasm) “ERROR” message, hover/pop stuff all working again.

For about 8 minutes, until Adobe releases 23.x (smiley).