Just a bit of service info for those who didn't know.
Following a recent patent lawsuit, the latest cumulative security update from Microsoft (Tuesday, April 11) will deactivate all ActiveX controls embedded in HTML pages in Internet Explorer. This includes all versions of Macromedia FlashPlayer (as well as QuickTime, Shockwave, Adobe Reader etc.). What it means is, Flash animations and "applications" will not run until the user specifically activates them by clicking them.
The only known way to get around this (supplied by MS themselves) is to insert your Flash elements through Javascript. Macromedia are apparently working on another solution, but until then, the following links describe the problem and solution:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/activecontent/faq.html
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/03/29/423560.aspx
For end users, a temporary solution is to apply a hotfix mentioned in the document at the latter link. A more permanent solution would be to switch to a better browser...
By the way, this is not really news as such. The update has been available on windows update for well over a month. The main difference is, now it's a security update, meaning that users who have automatic updates turned on (=the majority) will get it installed automatically. So, it's time to update your web pages...
Following a recent patent lawsuit, the latest cumulative security update from Microsoft (Tuesday, April 11) will deactivate all ActiveX controls embedded in HTML pages in Internet Explorer. This includes all versions of Macromedia FlashPlayer (as well as QuickTime, Shockwave, Adobe Reader etc.). What it means is, Flash animations and "applications" will not run until the user specifically activates them by clicking them.
The only known way to get around this (supplied by MS themselves) is to insert your Flash elements through Javascript. Macromedia are apparently working on another solution, but until then, the following links describe the problem and solution:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/activecontent/faq.html
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/03/29/423560.aspx
For end users, a temporary solution is to apply a hotfix mentioned in the document at the latter link. A more permanent solution would be to switch to a better browser...
By the way, this is not really news as such. The update has been available on windows update for well over a month. The main difference is, now it's a security update, meaning that users who have automatic updates turned on (=the majority) will get it installed automatically. So, it's time to update your web pages...
