Here at AJ Tek, we like to keep our customers in the know when it comes to major changes to not only our WSUS Automated Maintenance (WAM) software, but the WSUS and Windows world in general! One such major announcement that we want to focus on is that Adobe, a trusted partner of Microsoft, has stopped supporting Flash Player, seemingly marking the final step towards the death of the plug-in. Not only is Adobe not supporting it, they are actively blocking content from being able to run in the player, and urging their users to uninstall Flash Player from their Windows 10 to protect devices from potential attacks.
If you are concerned about how to remove Adobe Flash Player from your system, worry not, Microsoft already has you covered. Shortly after Adobe officially stopped supporting the plug-in, Microsoft confirmed that their “Flash Player-Killer patch” is now available for download in a February 2021 support document.
Although some users have seen this update come across their server automatically already, those wishing to download it simply need to visit the “Optional Updates” section of their WU or WSUS to enable the update. Once installed, you can wave goodbye to Adobe Flash Player as you will not be able to use it again!
Before we all move on from mentioning Flash Player ever again, the AJ Tek team wants to reinforce to our users that this plug-in is absolutely, positively, 100% dead. No current or previous versions should be installed into any systems in the future, and it should absolutely be removed from any system that is currently using it. It is not just the AJ Tek team reinforcing this either! Microsoft has further re-iterated that as of July 2021, the KB4577586 “Update for Removal of Adobe Flash Player” will be included in the Latest Cumulative Update for Windows 10, versions 1507, 1607, 1809 and above. The KB4577586 will also be included as part of the Monthly Rollup and the Security Only Update for Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Embedded 8 Standard. This should bring Flash installations to just about a complete stand-still for every operating system above Windows 8.
If you or your company are keeping it around to help run antiquated software, you should be upgrading that software immediately. If there are no software upgrades available, be sure to get on your web developer’s case to create a system that no longer requires Flash, which would generally be a HTML5 solution.
When it comes to servers and keeping your WSUS up to date, obviously there are a lot of moving parts outside of just outdated and unsupported plug-ins. If you want to keep your server under control and stay on top of maintenance, our WSUS Automated Maintenance (WAM) software is the go-to choice of system administrators around the world!
For just $90 USD a year, our software can automatically decline multiple types of updates, remove obsolete updates and drivers, clean synchronization logs, and much more!
Interested in learning more about licensing WAM?
Check out our full features breakdown here!
At AJ Tek, our vision is to make IT simple and automated for other IT professionals. Our flagship product is WAM, WSUS Automated Maintenance. This system performs all of the tasks that a WSUS Administrator needs to do to maintain WSUS properly only leaving the approving of updates and reporting to the WSUS Administrator.
