How do I *completely* uninstall Flash Player and then install the *full* player?

How do I completely uninstall Flash Player and then install the full player?

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ThisOneBetterBeOK - 30 Aug 2008 19:40 GMT

I lost the ability to to hear the audio on YouTube videos and other (e.g., news
feed sites) videos served via Flash Player. Several people who encountered this
problem claim to have solved it by reinstalling Flash Player. This has not
helped me, though the Adobe sites I download from all serve up either the Flash
Player *plugin* or the ActiveX player (I prefer Firefox to IE).

The uninstallers I've downloaded from Adobe run in a few seconds, and I
suspect are not doing a complete uninstall. If I search my registry for "Flash"
or "Macromed" I find many, many entries. Is there a special utility that will
do a complete cleanout of Flash registry items and files?

Is there a site where I can download the *full* player, not just the plugin?

One point of information about my problem, however, that makes me think it is
not a problem with the Flash Player itself is that I've also lost all Windows
sounds (which I find mostly annoying, so I don't mind that), and there's no
Windows sound icon in the system tray.

I *am* able to play (and hear) mp3 and wma files played directly off my hard
drive. So I think the sound card and audio device drivers (mine is SoundMAX
Digital Audio) are fine.

I've gone through the various "solutions" that fixed this for others--codecs
replacements, cookie clearing, regisry repair utilities, I even reinstalled the
audio driver from the Gateway disk.

I'm stumped and am almost tempted to by an external (USB) sound card and try
directing Flash to it.

But I'm sure there's another solution.

Oh, this is XP SP3 (upgraded to SP3 *after* the problem manifested).

- Willie

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David Stiller - 31 Aug 2008 18:31 GMT

Willie,

> The uninstallers I've downloaded from Adobe run in a few
> seconds, and I suspect are not doing a complete uninstall.

The Flash Player runtime is surprisingly small, so it only takes a few
seconds to uninstall. What uninstaller(s) have you tried?

> If I search my registry for "Flash" or "Macromed" I find many,
> many entries. Is there a special utility that will do a complete
> cleanout of Flash registry items and files?

In my experience, using the uninstaller here ...

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14157

... does the trick (I occasionally use this uninstaller for testing
purposes).

> Is there a site where I can download the *full* player, not just the
> plugin?

The plugin (and/or ActiveX control) *is* the full runtime. Unless
you're a Flash author -- that is, a multimedia designer or developer -- the
plugin is all you need in order to view Flash content. If you actually use
the Flash authoring tool, you get an additional standalone version of the
runtime that lets you run SWF files outside of a browser. To get that, you
obviously need to shell out for the authoring tool (or you could try the
trial version).

> One point of information about my problem, however, that
> makes me think it is not a problem with the Flash Player itself
> is that I've also lost all Windows sounds (which I find mostly
> annoying, so I don't mind that), and there's no Windows sound
> icon in the system tray.

Hearing that, my first inclination is to agree that yes, this is a
Windows issue, not a Flash Player issue.

> I *am* able to play (and hear) mp3 and wma files played directly
> off my hard drive. So I think the sound card and audio device
> drivers (mine is SoundMAX Digital Audio) are fine.

Yes and no. If you don't have the Sound icon in your system tray,
something definitely seems to be amiss. (I'm afraid I can't say what,
because I'm not a Windows OS expert.)

I wish I could help you more, but I wanted to at least mention that
neither the plugin nor the ActiveX control is somehow disabled or less than
the real deal.

David Stiller
Adobe Community Expert
Dev blog, http://www.quip.net/blog/
"Luck is the residue of good design."

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Webmaster Forum / Flash / General Flash Topics / August 2008

How do I *completely* uninstall Flash Player and then install the *full* player?

How do I completely uninstall Flash Player and then install the full player?