Flash Player 8’s Release Means No More Upgrades for Older Operating Systems

Because of the recent upgrades and enhancements that were brought to Macromedia Flash Player 8, some older operating systems will no longer receive support for the playback of Flash based videos. Once the new Flash Player is released, the following operating systems will no longer be supported: Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows 95, and the classic Macintosh operating systems.

Luckily, Flash Player 8 comes out with upgraded stability and security features for older legacy systems of Macromedia Flash Player. Those who are not able to upgrade or install the new player ought to seek out and download version 7r63 of the Flash Player, which will utilize all of the security features that were upgraded in Flash Player 7.

It’s highly recommended to every user of Flash Player that uses the currently supported system to download the most recent upgrade to the service through the Player Download Center.

Why is Macromedia doing this? The most recent additions and new features that were put into the Flash Player will utilize newer operating system technology to enhance overall functionality, efficiency, and performance. The technology they’re utilizing in the upgrade is simply not found on those older systems. In addition to that, the manufacturers themselves refuse to fix issues that arise in these older operating systems, which makes it very difficult for Macromedia to address some Flash Player issues that arise because of root problems in the operating system itself.

With that being said, it is very obvious that many users of older operating systems will still want to run Flash Player as they have in the past. For those users, we recommend updating to Flash Player 7r63 to take full advantage of all of the stability and security features found there.