How to Remove Adobe Flash Player and Shockwave Player from Windows

If you have already tried to remove Adobe Flash Player completely, then you know for yourself that it is not so simple. In this article we will tell you in detail how to remove Adobe Flash Player completely from any computer on Windows 10.

Why remove Adobe Flash Player

• The program is no longer needed;
• Problems with the program;
• Reinstallation;
• Version update;

How to remove Adobe Flash Player

Alternative options

• Useful programs for Windows 10

There are already two fairly active topics on the site, one of which discusses why, and the other why. Today I will talk about how to properly remove this platform from your computer (this may be necessary, for example, if the player does not work properly and reinstalling it without first removing it is impossible).

Removal using standard Windows tools

Contrary to tradition, I'll start with more in a complicated way. It is suitable for those people who, for example, do not have access to the Internet for one reason or another.

The first thing you need to do is go to the “Control Panel”. To do this, click on the “Start” button, then select “Control Panel” on the right side of the window that opens. In the menu, select the “Programs and Features” section.

This way you will see a list of programs installed on your PC. We are only interested in one program - Adobe Flash Player. Find it in the list.

I want to make a small note right away. In my case, AFP appears once, but sometimes you can see several versions of the player at once. Don't be alarmed, this is normal. So, one of the versions can only be used for Internet browser Explorer, the other one is for everyone else. In any case, they will need to be removed.

So, find the utility, right-click on it and click “Delete”.

A window like this will appear.

To continue deleting, you will need to click on the “Delete” button, after which the system will begin automatic removal utilities. If suddenly browsers are opened that use AFP at the time of deletion, the system will report this and offer to close these browsers, which you will have to do. Afterwards the operation will continue. When finished, click on the “Done” button.

And this would be the end of the story if Adobe Flash Player had not scattered its “spare parts” into various folders, which, by the way, can become a problem when reinstalling the program. Therefore, you will need to delete everything that is in the following folders:

• %appdata%\Adobe\Flash Player

• %appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player

• C:\Windows\system32\Macromed\Flash

• C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash

Just copy the addresses one by one, paste each of them into address bar Explorer and delete the contents.

In order to make sure that the flash player was finally removed, you need to check. To do this, we will go to the official website of Adobe. On the site, click on the large yellow button that says “Check Now,” which is located immediately after the line “Check if Flash Player is installed on your computer.”

You should see that the player is not installed (in English - not installed).

Just in case, I would also clean the registry using .

Removal using a proprietary utility

For those who don’t want to bother with removing Flash Player, Adobe has come up with special utility, which will do everything for you on its own.

You need to open the Adobe website (http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html) or just type in Google the query uninstall flash player (without quotes) and go to the first link.

We launch the utility, delete the flash player, and then do not forget to delete all the folders specified in the first method. Just in case, clean the CCleaner registry.

If you have questions, you can ask them using comments.

Adobe Flash Player is a special player that is required so that your browser installed on your computer can correctly display Flash content hosted on various sites. If you suddenly have problems using this plugin or you simply no longer need it, you will need to perform a complete removal procedure.

Surely you know that when deleting programs through standard menu“Removing programs”, a huge number of files related to the program remain in the system, which can subsequently cause conflicts in the operation of other programs installed on the computer. That is why below we will look at how you can completely remove Flash Player from your computer.

How to completely remove Flash Player from your computer?

IN in this case, if we want to remove Flash Player completely, then we cannot do it with standard Windows tools alone, so to remove the plugin from the computer we will use the program Revo Uninstaller, which will allow you not only to remove the program from your computer, but also all files, folders and registry entries that, as a rule, still remain on the system.

1. Launch Revo Uninstaller. Please pay special attention to the fact that the operation of this program must be carried out exclusively in account administrator.

2. In the program window on the tab "Uninstaller" a list will be displayed installed programs, among which there is Adobe Flash Player (in our case there are two versions for different browsers– Opera and Mozilla Firefox). Right-click Adobe Flash Player and select "Delete" .

3. Before the program begins uninstalling Flash Player, it will create a Windows restore point, which will allow you to roll back the system if, after completely removing Flash Player from your computer, you encounter problems with the system.

4. Once the point is successfully created, Revo Uninstaller will launch the built-in Flash Player uninstaller. Use it to complete the program removal procedure.

5. Once Flash Player removal is complete, return to the window Revo programs Uninstaller. Now the program will need to conduct a scan, which will check the system for the presence of remaining files. We recommend that you note "Moderate" or "Advanced" scan mode so that the program checks the system more thoroughly.

6. The program will begin the scanning procedure, which should not take much time. Once the scan is completed, the program will display the remaining registry entries on the screen.

Please note that in the program, highlight only those registry entries that are highlighted in bold. Anything that you doubt should not be deleted again, as it can disrupt the operation of the system.

Once you have selected all the keys that relate to Flash Player, click on the button "Delete" , and then select the button "Next" .

7. Next, the program will display the remaining files and folders on the computer. Click the button "Select All" , and then select "Delete" . To complete the procedure, click on the button "Ready" .

This completes the uninstallation using the Flash Player removal utility. Just in case, we recommend restarting your computer.

In some cases, a flash player may malfunction, it may stop playing images or the sound may fail. In such situations, you need to reinstall this program, but first you need to remove it. Let's figure it out how to remove flash player completely.

Instructions for removing Adobe Flash Player

In order to answer the question, how to remove Adobe Flash Player, you will first need to go to the “Control Panel”, and then select this program from the window that opens and delete it.

Quite often, two flash players installed on your computer may open in front of you. This Adobe Flash Player ActiveX and Adobe Flash Player Plugin. A specialized ActiveX technology browser-only Internet Explorer. For other browsers, a specialized plugin is installed - a small application that extends the capabilities of the browser.

Before you start removing the flash player, you should close all browsers.

Flash player is not completely removed from the “Control Panel” window; “tails” remain in the system, so for complete removal you should use a specialized utility developed by this company. You can download the uninstaller utility from the manufacturer's official website. There is nothing complicated in this procedure; before launching the utility, you will need to close all browsers, and then follow the instructions.

However, that's not all. There is a possibility that some files will still remain on your computer. We will need to find them and remove them manually.

To do this, we need to open the Explorer program, and then go to the Flash folder located in drive C. We delete all folders from this folder. Then we will need to delete files from the following folders: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash, %appdata%\Adobe\Flash Player, %appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player.

It is not necessary that all these folders may be available on your computer, for this reason, if a particular one is not available, then you should look for the next ones in the list. After completing this procedure, you can check your computer for Availability of Adobe Flash Player on the official website. This completes the removal of the flash player. You can start downloading a new one with peace of mind.

Installed a new one Adobe version Flash Player, is it buggy? Lost sound in the browser? Has your Youtube video started to slow down? Or does it even ask you to update the flash player, even though you just installed it? This happens sometimes. In this case, you need to reinstall Flash Player. That is, remove it and then install a new one. In most cases this will solve the problem.

What to do if deleting the flash player did not help? Then the last option remains. You will need to install a special utility to completely remove Adobe Flash Player from your computer. But first things first.

How to reinstall Flash Player?

It is very easy to remove Adobe Flash Player from your computer. To do this:

Please note: in the screenshot above there are 2 flash players at once. The first (ActiveX) is for IE, and NPAPI is for other browsers (Mozilla, Opera, Yandex). If you have the same picture, then you need to delete both versions.

A separate plugin is installed for Chrome, and it is not displayed here.

This standard procedure remove Adobe Flash Player. After that, install the new version again and everything should work: sound, video, games in the browser.

If this does not help, then you need to reinstall the flash player using the utility.

How to completely remove Flash Player?

The standard removal procedure leaves traces in Windows system. To completely remove this plugin from your computer, you must use Flash utility Player Uninstall from Adobe developers, designed specifically for such cases (link).

You run it and follow the program instructions - it will do everything itself.

The only caveat: before you delete old version Adobe Flash Player, you need to exit all browsers.

When the removal of the flash player is successfully completed, there are still a few more steps left to complete simple actions. After all, the Adobe Flash Player Uninstaller utility leaves a couple of extra folders.

To remove them manually:

Repeat the same procedure for folders:

• C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash
• %appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player
• %appdata%\Adobe\Flash Player

Instead of Win + R, you can open any folder and copy all 4 items in turn to top line for the address. Perhaps it will be easier and more convenient for you.

If a folder is missing, just skip it. If the files do not want to be deleted, restart your PC or laptop and try again. Or use Unlocker program(if any).

This is how it is done complete removal Flash Player. You can make sure that you did everything correctly by opening this link. Click on “Check Now” and read the message.

And finally, it’s worth noting about the flash player in Chrome.

How to remove an outdated Flash Player plugin in Chrome?

Chrome already has built-in Flash Player. And you won’t be able to remove it using this method. It comes as a plugin, so you can disable it by typing chrome://plugins in the address bar.

If there are certain problems (no sound or video is slow), try updating it manually. To do this, enter chrome://components in the address bar, find the flash player and click the “Check for updates” button.

That's all. Now you know how to properly remove Adobe Flash Player on a laptop or PC. And two in different ways. Then all that remains is , after which video, audio and games in the browser should be played in normal mode (without glitches or slowdowns).