Apr 01, 2011 Home > Software > Software Deployment & Patching. Deployed flash player without admin rights. For more informaton about downloading and using the manual installer, read the section 'Download Flash Player. However, there are some cases where these privileges are needed, and if you don't know the administrator's password, you will find that you are unable to install the programs that you need. Luckily, Windows operating systems provide a loophole that you can use to give yourself administrative privileges.
Hello.In my workplace we have Windows XP (SP2) installed on people's computers. We each have our own logins, but we generally cannot perform administrative duties (we have a sysadmin for that).
I've just installed Firefox 2.0.0.12 in my account and everything went fine. But next, while trying to install the Flash Player plug-in, it aborts, saying it needs admin privileges (apparently to write some global key in the registry). I asked the admin, but he declined, claiming that we're free to install whatever in our own accounts (these are shared across the domain, btw), but that there is no reason we should ever need admin privileges, even for a single workstation.I actually agree with the guy: Afterall, Flash Player is supposed to be a user program, why would it ever need to be installed as an admin?
Now, i realize that Adobe itself claims that it must be installed by an admin. On the other hand, i once installed Flash (an older version) in my home Linux box and it never required root. So, my question is: Is there any way i can put Flash running in XP with Firefox without using admin privileges? Perhaps an older version of Flash would do it? (I don't mind running an older version, i have Flash 7 at home and it always works fine.)
Or perhaps manually installing the plug-in without using the installer provided by Adobe? Or even fooling the installer somehow into thinking it could write into the registry without it actually being able to?Has anyone faced this situation before?
Many thanks.
Will users who do not have admin rights on their computers be able to upgrade to new Flash player version by themselves?
This would be interesting to know for:Windows 98Windows XP/2000/VistaMacsUnix/Linux
Edward TanguayEdward Tanguay5 Answers
Take a look at the Adobe instructions for more clarification...
I know on Linux, at least, you do not need admin privs. Flash is installed in ~/.mozilla/plugins when you use the .tar.gzed installer script.
On Windows, I think there's only the option of doing a system-wide install so you need Administrator rights.
From the instructions for both Mac and Windows:
Installation of Adobe Flash Player may require administrative access to your PC, which is normally provided by your IT department.
May require? Thanks for being clear, Adobe =) I think it's safe to assume they do as they're both system-integrated installers. The same goes for Linux if you use the YUM/RPM installers. If you use the script, you can run it as anybody with execution rights.
OliOliFor Mac the answer is 'not really, but then again, yes' :P
Actually he wouldn't need it. On Mac there is a directory for browser plugins. No matter if you use Safari or Firefox (or possibly another browser), it is standard or Mac that browsers search their plugins in that folder. It is named:
And as always on Mac, this directory exists twice. Once as system directory
and also once for every user
It doesn't matter into which directory a user puts a plugin, the browser will look into both. That means if I put it into the System's Library folder, all users will have the plugin, if I put it into my folder only, only my user has it.
So far the theory. The problem in practice is that Adobe doesn't ship the flash plugin as a plugin file, you could just copy into either location (why not? On Mac almost any app or plugin could just be shipped as a file. It really won't kill the user to manually copy it somewhere), but it ships an installer (I hate installers on Mac). And the installer wants to put it into the System's Library folder for all users AFAIK. To do that, it will prompt the user for the appropriate permissions and only an admin user can grant these permissions.
MeckiMeckiFor Windows: yes you need admin rights for the system to install flash player. which installs through an exe file
OliI just managed to get it working for a Mac OS X without admin rights.
Download the installer from Adobe and make sure to save it somewhere, rather than letting it automatically open. Unzip the installation archive and you should end up with 'Install Flash Player 10' mounted. Check inside that, but instead of opening 'Adobe Flash Player.pkg', right click that file to Show Package Contents.
In the folder that pops up, open Contents and look for archive.pax.gz or resources/adobe flash player.pax.gz, both seem to contain the same things. Unzip that archive.
You'll find flashplayer.xpt and flash player.plugin in there. Copy both of them to users/whichever user you are/library/internet plugins... if you see those files there already, it's the right place, just want to replace them with the new ones, then restart your browser.
Hopefully that'll work for you.
NO If your using Firefox Download the XPI archive of the Flash Player Plugin to your hard drivehttp://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/xpi/current/flashplayer-win.xpi
Rename the file you downloaded, called flashplayer-win.xpi, into flashplayer-win.zip Extract the files in the archive