Windows 8 Downgrade

[lineman78]

So Adobe has very detailed information and tutorials on how to downgrade Flash Player, however I am running Windows 8.1 and have run into an issue with the latest version of flash player and cannot downgrade as the installer refuses to let me install on Win 8 as it says Windows update will handle it. Is it possible to downgrade flash versions in Windows 8? If not, WHY? Obviously Adobe thought that it was important enough and a common issue to maintain an installer archive and provide an uninstaller so why block the install of older versions in Windows 8? As for why I want to downgrade, there is a known issue with the CBS website in combination with PlayLater on Windows 8 with the latest Flash Player.

[C_F_McBlob]

Flash Player (ActiveX) for Windows 8 & 8.1 is Microsoft's software by the time they embed it. Adobe doesn't block uninstalling it... MICROSOFT DOES. There's a KB Patch and two registry keys you have to manually delete (you CAN'T just uninstall them) in order to be able to remove ActiveX Flash from a Win 8 or 8.12 machine. I did it once and it was H-E-L-L to do.

Frankly, I can't stand Internet Exploder and I never could. It's pure garbage, and the latest build is the worst of all of them. Here's why:

"User-Agent Strings"

That doesn't mean a lot, I'm sure, but it's the root of your problems, and Flash Player has nothing to do with it.

Microsoft "rewrote" the User-Agent Strings for the abomination they call their latest and greatest browser (Read more here).

User-Agent Strings are what websites use to identify the browser you're using and provide the proper content for it's browser engine, like ActiveX stuff, and Flash or HTML5 video.

Thanks to the geniuses in Redmond, WA, the User-Agent Strings for IE11 (which has a Trident engine), ID it as either "Gecko" (Firefox) or "Webkit" (Chrome).

Trouble is: when the site the directs to the content for one of these two engines, the Trident engine in IE can't interpret it and the site then sees IE as an "unidentified" browser.

The problem with an unidentified browser is that the plug-ins in that browser aren't recognized either, so even though you're up to date, it says you need the latest Flash Player when you use IE11.

YouTube... has converted to HTML5 video so if it doesn't detect Flash Player, it can display HTML5 (MP4) video which requires no plug-in to play.

Facebook can't do that, because HTML5 doesn't apply to games... only video.

Microsoft has no plans to "fix" the mess they've created because they think it's a great idea to block you out of the websites you visit.

They recommend using "Compatibility View" and pretending that you're using an older version of IE...

The Problem with THAT is that it's seen limited success, and you have to enable it for EVERY page that has problems... individually.

You'll have about 90% less headache with another browser.

Firefox (from Mozilla)

Opera (from Opera)

Safari (from Apple)

Chrome (from Google)

ANY of those will work where IE11 won't, with the Flash Player Plug-in (For all other browsers), and Chrome doesn't even need that, because it has its own Flash Player plugin built in.