The latest Windows 10 update puts the nail in Adobe Flash Player’s coffin, permanently removing the software.
Adobe Flash was one of the internet’s early means of creating and viewing multimedia. While innovative at the time, the software had a long history of being plagued with security issues—many of which were severe vulnerabilities that compromised computer systems.
As the issues continued, the tide began to turn against Flash, with Apple deciding in 2010 to stop including the software on all new Macs. Eventually Adobe decided to end-of-life the software, making the announcement in 2017, throwing its weight behind standards such as HTML5.
Although the software is not officially dead until December 21, 2020, Microsoft is preemptively killing it on Windows 10, according to a new support note.
This update removes Adobe Flash Player that is installed on any of the Windows operating systems that are listed in the “Applies to” section. After you apply this update, it cannot be uninstalled.
If a users need Adobe Flash Player, they will need to restore to an earlier system restore point and explicitly enable the feature, or completely reinstall Windows and forgo this latest patch.