Beginning with 9.5.1, Adobe Reader and Acrobat no longer include a Flash Player for displaying Flash in
PDF files. Instead, rendering Flash content embedded in a PDF now requires that a Flash Player already
resides on the user machine. This new strategy simplifies Acrobat and Reader deployments by reducing
the number of future required updates should a security issue arise. Moreover, you can now manage and
update Acrobat products and Flash individually.
If you open a PDF that requires Flash, a dialog prompts you to download and install the latest Flash
player. To preinstall Flash, go here:
•
Windows
: Adobe Reader and Acrobat Flash Player Download for Windows
•
Macintosh
: Adobe Reader and Acrobat Flash Player Download for Mac
Note
Flash de-coupling is not available in Safari for this release. Otherwise, Acrobat 9.x products require the
Flash Player browser plug-in (Safari and Firefox) version 11.2 or higher. Flash Player 11.2 stopped
supporting Windows 2000 and Mac OS lower than 10.6. Therefore, users need at least Windows XP
and Mac OS 10.6.x to view Flash content in a PDF.
Enterprise IT can control how Flash plays within PDFs by setting the bEnableFlash registry entry (Win) or
EnableFlash plist entry (Mac). When set to 0, Flash only plays if the PDF is a trusted privileged location.
The paths are as follows:
•
32 and 64-bit XP
:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\[Adobe Reader|Adobe Acrobat]\9.0\FeatureLockDown\bEnableFlash
•
64-bit Windows 7
:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\[Adobe Reader|Adobe Acrobat]\9.0\ FeatureLockDown\bEnableFlash
•
Macintosh
:
Contents::MacOS::Preferences << FeatureLockdown << /EnableFlash [ /b false ] >>
Flash configuration
Setting
Behavior
bEnableFlash = 0
Flash does not play within PDFs.
bEnableFlash = 1
Default. Same as when the key is not present. Play Flash in any PDF file without restriction.
Note that this change results in two new behaviors:
• When
bEnableFlash
= 0, Flash content is rendered as an empty, white box and does not play. A
yellow message bar also appears at the top of the document stating that "Some features are
disabled to avoid potential security risks."
• When
bEnableFlash
= 1, Flash plays if there is a system player present. If a player is not found,
then the user is prompted to download the latest version.
Section 8 External Content Access
Application Security Guide
Page 84
Section 8 External Content Access