Microsoft's information on Flash removal in Windows 8.1/Windows 10

[German]Even though Adobe Flash has been disabled in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 since early January 2021, there may still be code in operating system installations. Now Microsoft has quietly updated its plans to remove Flash from Windows. Starting in June 2021, a new attempt will be made to remove the Adobe Flash player from Windows.

The long goodbye to Flash

One of Microsoft's biggest mistakes (at least in my eyes) was to ship Adobe Flash Player as part of the operating system in Windows 8.1 as well as Windows 10. With that, Redmond now has to roll out updates to remove the Flash player from the operating system. However, Adobe allowed support for Adobe Flash Player to expire as planned at the end of 2020. This means there will be no more security updates from Adobe for this product (see also Adobe Flash is reaching now the End).

However, this does not come as a surprise at all, as Adobe had already announced in July 2017, together with technology partners such as Microsoft, that Adobe Flash Player would no longer be supported after December 2020. I had mentioned that within the blog post Fake News: Flash is dead? Now it's fading out is planned 2020. And Microsoft had outlined the roadmap for phasing out Flash at the time. Adobe itself had included a kill switch with an update to Flash Player that would disable it on January 12, 2021.

By the end of 2020, the ability to run Adobe Flash in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer was removed from all supported versions of Microsoft Windows. At the same time, browser developers kicked out Adobe Flash Player or Flash support from products like Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.

In the blog post Microsoft: Flash Player will be removable in autumn, support will end in 2021, I had pointed out that Flash Player would be removed from Windows in 2021 through cumulative updates (specifically, this applies to Windows 8.1 through Windows 10, along with its server counterparts and Windows Embedded 8 Standard). So I actually thought the topic was closed.

Microsoft published a new roadmap

Bleeping Computer colleagues have noticed that Microsoft have quietly updated the September 2020 Update on Adobe Flash Player End of Support article again in April 2021. There you can now find information about upcoming Flash removal updates. Microsoft is using update KB4577586 "Update to remove Adobe Flash Player" to remove Flash Player from Windows.  Now, Microsoft plans to include this update in cumulative updates and announces the following schedules.

• Starting June 2021, update KB4577586 will be included in the Preview Update for Windows 10, version 1809 and higher platforms. It will also be included in any subsequent Last Cumulative Update.
• Starting in July 2021, update KB4577586 will be included in the Last Cumulative Update for Windows 10, version 1607 and Windows 10, version 1507. The KB will also be included in the monthly rollup and Security Only Update for Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Embedded 8 Standard. 

In addition, Windows 10 will have Flash removed when upgrading to Windows 10, version 21H1 or later.  KB4577586 can also be downloaded directly from the Microsoft Update Catalog and then installed to manually remove Flash. This will especially affect users who have obtained an old version of Flash Player from obscure sources in order to continue using it on Windows 8.1/10.     

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