Does a user need admin rights to install Flash player?

Question

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 98 Windows XP/2000/Vista Macs Unix/Linux

Solution 1

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.

Solution 2

For 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:

Library/Internet Plug-ins

And as always on Mac, this directory exists twice. Once as system directory

/Library/Internet Plug-ins

and also once for every user

/Users/<username>/Library/Internet Plug-ins

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.

Solution 3

For Windows: yes you need admin rights for the system to install flash player. which installs through an exe file