Microsoft to remove Adobe Flash Player via June update

After a decade of life support, Adobe ceased support for Flash Player at the start of this year. I didn't expect I would be writing about Adobe's Flash Player again this year -- but apparently, there is still one final step until this technology is fully dead and buried.

Organizations had many years to prepare for this moment, but sadly, there are still a lot of tools that require Flash support. This includes some relatively widely used educational software that hasn't been updated in a long time. And even in the corporate and the network world, there are still tools that haven't received an HTML5-based replacement.

Windows 10 will see removal of Flash Player in June

Microsoft is now calling it quits and published a notice that the Removal of Adobe Flash Player update (KB4577586) for Windows 10 will become mandatory starting in June. The software giant also notes that updating to Windows 10 version 21H1 or later will also automatically result in the removal of Flash Player.

The KB4577586 update has been available since earlier this year, but up until now, it's been an optional download. Next month, Microsoft will make it mandatory via the monthly Patch Tuesday security patches.

Do note that this only removes Flash Player components included in Windows. Manual installations of Flash Player, or third-party solutions like the commercial Flash Player from Harman, will not be removed.