Member Avatar for ellybas

Hi folk... My first post and I will enjoy reading other's...I am not a professional IT person...a 72 year old lady that has just been involved with computers for more years than I care to admit to...remember the IBM 360 and the Burroughs Beastly B80?...and have had my own PC since the early eighties.

I usually use open source browsers but because I teach others of my age to get the most out of their computers, I downloaded the new IE8 and found it wouldnt open a tried and true webpage that would open on all those browsers that I have used!!!!

The message included the dangerous piece of code called swflash.cab... when googling for information (how I found this site) it seems that some gamers programmers and others were experiencing a similar problem.

To cut a longish story short...I went to the Adobe site and downloaded the item...extracted and installed it from C:\Windows in it's own folder. Voila....I can now open the oh so clean Lottery web site here in Queensland australia.

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Dani AI

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A short, practical add‑on for anyone finding this old thread: swflash.cab was the cabinet (”.cab”) package web pages used as the codebase to deliver Adobe Flash’s ActiveX control to Internet Explorer. That is why visiting a Flash page could trigger an IE install prompt rather than just play inline content. (support.smartbear.com)

Why IE8 sometimes refused the download: Internet Explorer’s security model treats ActiveX/CAB installs specially. IE8 added stricter prompts and “ActiveX” protections; whether a CAB downloads or is blocked depends on your security zone, the ActiveX settings under Internet Options -> Security -> Custom Level, and (on managed machines) the ActiveX Installer Service / group policy allow‑lists. For enterprises there are registry/GPO methods to approve specific codebases, but for home users the safest route was to use vendor‑supplied installers and adjust only the minimal prompt settings if needed. (support.microsoft.com)

Important safety update for readers years later: Adobe ended Flash Player support on December 31, 2020 and disabled Flash content in player builds beginning January 12, 2021. Adobe strongly warns against using third‑party Flash downloads; installing old Flash builds today exposes systems to known, unpatched vulnerabilities. If you must run archived Flash content, prefer an emulator such as Ruffle or run isolated, offline VMs—do not reintroduce legacy Flash into a daily‑use browser. (adobe.com)

Quick practical checklist:

  • Do not install unknown CABs from random sites.
  • Verify any installer’s digital signature (File Properties -> Digital Signatures) or use Sysinternals Sigcheck before trusting it. If the signer is missing or invalid, decline the install. (vdoc.pub)

Thanks to for reporting the symptom and to for the Flash identification — the long‑term answer is to avoid plugin‑based pages and move sites to modern, HTML5 solutions whenever possible.

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Member Avatar for mdk2k4

and that means..., you won the lottery then.

Member Avatar for ellybas

and that means..., you won the lottery then.

not yet...this tuesday....90 million dollars....lol but seriously the problem is one of the many reasons why I dont like working with MS. However because they have the monopoly I must keep up with their problems to fix my friends problems.... and I must say I dont still that vvery first PC...must be onto my 15th by now...thanks for the response.

Member Avatar for Godsp3ed

Swflash is Shockwave flash, if the site needed it then it would be asked by any other browser too, not just IE, but personally i hate IE, i feel Firefox/Opera are the best.. :)

Member Avatar for ellybas

Swflash is Shockwave flash, if the site needed it then it would be asked by any other browser too, not just IE, but personally i hate IE, i feel Firefox/Opera are the best.. :)

that was the whole point...IE8 would NOT allow me to even download it... I ended up downloading it with my favourite gorilla and installing it...then starting IE8 which then accepted my request to go to the www.goldencasket.com.au...
thanks for your input...

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