More on Flash Player 11.3

GregN

Flash Player 10
Last Friday I posted on some issues with Adobe’s new recommended method for unattended installs of Flash Player 11.3.

You might be interested in exactly what “extra” things are installed when you use the Adobe method rather than just installing the Adobe Flash Player.pkg found inside the Install Adobe Flash Player.app bundle.

It turns out that after installing the package, the app copies itself (minus the embedded package) to /Applications/Utilities/Adobe Flash Player Install Manager.app.

When the Adobe Flash Player.pkg is not found inside the app bundle, launching the Adobe Flash Player Install Manager.app causes it to display the Flash Player uninstall UI.

The executable at /Applications/Utilities/Adobe\ Flash\ Player\ Install\ Manager.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe\ Flash\ Player\ Install\ Manager is what is called when you click “Check Now” under Advanced->Updates in the Flash Player preference pane. If /Applications/Utilities/Adobe\ Flash\ Player\ Install\ Manager.app is missing, the preference pane crashes. This explains the issue which led us to look at Adobe’s recommended deployment mechanism.

Since checking for and downloading new Flash updates is handled by Adobe Flash Player Install Manager.app, it would seem that automatically checking for updates and auto-installs of any Flash Player updates are also broken on machines where Flash Player was installed via the package instead of via Adobe’s supported method, since this application will be missing.

More on Flash Player 11.3

3 thoughts on “More on Flash Player 11.3”

  2. Karthikeyan M says:

    Hi Greg,

    We normally disable Auto update for the flash application in our environment using mms.cfg file which greys out the Updates option in Flash Player System Preferences. Do we still need Adobe Flash Player Install Manager.app in Utilities?

    If the app is not needed, then I can go ahead and install the .pkg from source.

    Regards,
    Karthikeyan

    1. Karthikeyan M says:

      Just noticed… mms.cfg in FP11.3 does not greyout the Updates option in FP System Preferences Pane. In FP 11.2, it use to grey out Update option, so that users cant change the settings.

      Its not greying out in FP 11.3. Is there any way to grey out Updates in FP System Preferences?

      Regards,
      Karthikeyan

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