In keeping with the 2017 announcement from Apple, Google, Mozilla, Microsoft and Adobe, Microsoft is getting a jump on the upcoming December 2020 end date for Adobe Flash Player support with a new Windows 10 update.
The Update KB4577586 is available for Windows 10 and Windows Server, as well as Windows 8.1. and will completely remove Adobe Flash Player support.
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This past September Microsoft announced that they were ending support for Adobe Flash Player on their web browsers (Edge, Edge Chromium and Internet Explorer 11) by the end of 2020.
Microsoft also announced that they would allow Adobe Flash Player to load via the Explorer 11 mode feature. Essentially they will be treating Adobe Flash player like any other third party plug-in and will not offer any support.
Microsoft stated "We are releasing this removal update in advance of end of support to help customers test and validate their environments for any impact that might occur by the removal of Adobe Flash Player. Also, if another security update for Adobe Flash Player is released, customers who take this removal update will still be offered the security update,".
However, as reported by ZD Net, Microsoft has provided two ways users can continue using Adobe Flash Player after the update is installed on their computers, "Users can reset a device to an earlier system restore point. However, users need to explicitly enable this feature and a system restore point must have been created on the Windows device before the update is applied. The other option is to reinstall Windows without applying the update."
The new Microsoft update is being implemented before the end of Adobe Flash Player support so that users can test how it affects their systems but, they will continue to offer Flash security updates until the end of Adobe Flash support happens at the end of this year.
