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Wednesday
Feb202013

Adobe Flash "stub" Installer Fails and then Deletes Itself. WHY, WHY, WHY?

Well, what better way to start a blog than by complaining...

When I try to install Flash Player in the "normal" way, I download the little installer which then is supposed to go download the rest of Flash Player.  In around 50% of the cases when I do this, the installer fails and then deletes itself. I wonder; who is the idiotic programmer (or his/her manager) who thought this was a good idea?

I can download it again but it will do the same thing every time. If this happens once on a computer, it will usually happen at every version upgrade. The only option is to download the full installer, which Adobe calls a "Direct Download". But of course they don't make it easy to find the "direct download" because they want you to download the version with the McAfee Security Scan installed because they get paid every time someone is tricked into downloading it. Maybe that's why my installs fail - I turn off the McAfee junk. They also continue to move the direct download with each version so that previous links pointing to it will break. Does Adobe really want people to use it's products?

When you're like me and you're trying to maintain a couple hundred computers at various businesses, stupid things like this make the job just that much harder.

Tonight, Flash just failed to install on my main PC again (it did this at the last upgrade too) so now...  I removed it. Forget reinstalling. Now, if only my clients could live without Flash I'd be all set.

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Reader Comments (1)

Update:

Flash Player for Internet Explorer is here:
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/current/support/install_flash_player_ax.exe

Flash Player Plug-in for other browsers is here:
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/current/support/install_flash_player.exe

Please let me know if these links break or if they don't provide the full download (rather then the stub installer).
March 10, 2014 | Registered CommenterDavid Walsh

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