Installs but doesn't detect

Question

I have installed Flash Player 9. It works so long as the
website I visit doesn't attempt to detect whether it is installed
or not.
Unfortunately, most websites try to detect if the visitor has
Flash installed before showing the flash movie. In this case, the
website always tells me that I don't have flash, and then redirects
me to the Macromedia download page. This then tells me that I
already have Flash Player installed. And so the cycle continues.
I have run the removal tool to remove flash, then reinstalled
it. No joy.
I have run the repair tool, but I get this error message -
DllRegisterServer in
c:\windows\system32\macromed\flash\flash9b.ocx failed.
Return code was: 0x80070005
My security settings are all as should be - besides that's
not the issue, because I have installed the player, and it will
work fine on some sites eg
Thomas
the Tank Engine which don't use Flash detection scripts.
It's just the websites that do Flash detection that are the
problem, because they ALWAYS tell me I don't have Flash.
What can I do?
I have XP Pro SP2 with IE6.

Answer 1

Your issue has been discussed many times on this and other
forums and suffice it to say that it has become a sensitive topic
to many. At the risk of opening a can of worms, I will offer some
advice.
The activeX control (flash9b.ocx) is not getting registered
correctly, hence some Flash detection schemes will fail. There can
be any of a number of causes for this - too many to discuss here;
here are some steps I have found that can overcome a number of
potential causes.
First, carefully remove all traces of Flash Player:
Get the newest version of the Flash Uninstaller (as of
11/14/2006) from this Tech Note:
http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_14157
and run it as instructed in the tech note. Do not use any existing
Uninstaller you may have on your computer now.
Unfortunately, failed installs of Player seem to leave
remnants that the Uninstall program may not clean. So, some manual
remediation can be needed:
Go to the folder "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Macromed\Flash" and
delete all the files in this folder (leave the folder).
Go to the folder "C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Program Files" and if
you find "Shockwave Flash Object", delete it. It should not appear,
as it will only show if you have correctly registered the ActiveX
control (in which case you would likely not be having these
problems).
Just for grins, open the Control Panel, Add or Remove
Programs and look for any instances of Flash Player that may still
show. Hopefully, there will be none.
Now, go to “
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/about/”
and insure that it does not show Flash Player version installed.
At this point, you should not have any “old
stuff” to cause problems with the Flash Player 9 install. You
will also have removed any plug-ins for Firefox, Netscape, and etc.
so you will also need to open these browsers and re-install Flash
Player 9 from the Adobe site.
Now, try to reinstall from the Adobe site.
To be safest, reboot your computer into "Safe Mode with
Networking". This will insure that you don't have any programs
running that might use Flash and that none of your security
programs will interfere. See
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315222
if you need to know how to do this.
Alternatively, deactivate any Internet security programs
(especially Norton Internet Utilities) and exit any programs in
your Windows System tray. See this Adobe Tech Note:
http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_19166.
Now open IE and open the Adobe.com home page and click on the
link to install Flash Player.
If you see the Flash movie indicating a successful
installation and get no error messages, then you are likely in good
condition. If you get error messages, then these are symptoms that
you may have more serious windows registry problems or a corrupted
IE installation.