Installing Flash Player Plugin on Firefox without having Administrator Access or Premissions

Last updated on Mon, 2012-07-16 09:14. Originally submitted by fabio on 2007-02-19 16:32.

UPDATE: The following guide, originally written for Firefox 2, has been used successfully on Firefox 3, 3.5, 3.6, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. Users of Firefox Portable edition (same versions) also have been successful using this guide.

The Windows computers available at my University permits login only by autenticated users (students) who don't have Administrator access and permissions.

Installing software on those PC is then not possible.

Recently they finally installed Firefox 2 but without the Flash plugins, which is absolutly useful/needed.

I then tryed to install the Flash Player using the "standard" way (click on the missing plugin link then install the plugin..). However without administrator plugins it was not possible to install.

Then I started doing some tests trying to install the plugin manually. Now I have it installed and working perfectly!

This is how I managed to install it without administrator permissions:

  1. Download this ZIP archive to your hard disk.
  2. Extract the file in the archive. You can use any program capable of opening .zip files (WinZip, WinRAR or the free and great 7-zip). There are also websites which can uncompress archives: wobzip.org.
  3. Copy the file NPSWF32.dll to %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Plugins\
    • %APPDATA% is not a real folder. It's an alias. By inserting it in your windows explorer address bar, you'll be redirected to the real folder which holds your applications profiles and settings. The location of this folder depends on various setting that's why we need the alias and not an absolute path.
    • You can open this folder simply choosing "Start → Run → Type in %APPDATA% → OK".
    • In case you don't have a Plugins folder you can create one and place your files there.
  4. Restart Firefox
  5. Enjoy your flash websites!

Reference:
Profile folder on MozillaZine Knowledge Base.
Installing Flash in Portable Firefox with no installer at AcidLabs.org Blog.

Posted in:

Thanks. This worked a treat.

Submitted by Rob (not verified) on Tue, 2012-02-07 22:49.

Thanks. This worked a treat.

I love you

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 2012-01-15 06:57.

I hate Adobe and I love you!

Simple! Worked even with Firefox running!

Submitted by EddieBear (not verified) on Sat, 2012-01-14 19:40.

I use PortableApps from hard disk, and FirefoxPortable exclusively. I had it open and went to a YouTube page, requiring Flash to play the video. I simply opened a new tab, went to this site, donwloaded the file, extracted it with 7-Zip, and moved the NPSWF32.dll file into the following folder:

"\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\Data\plugins"

All I had to do was refresh/reload the YouTube page to get the video to play! The beauty of it is that I did this all WHILE FirefoxPortable was running! How simple and awesome is that?!?!?!

BTW, I think the people that are having problems with it don't realize that they have to actually click on the link to follow it, or open it in another tab, to get to the actual file download. You CANNOT just right-click on it and do a "save as", cause what is saved is NOT the real file. Thank you for a simple solution and for saving me from installing the bloated full Flash program!

It worked!

Submitted by pristine (not verified) on Fri, 2011-12-30 20:09.

Thank you man so much! It really works!

Works perfectly with Firefox

Submitted by bagface (not verified) on Wed, 2011-12-21 03:48.

Works perfectly with Firefox 9

perfect

Submitted by ailton (not verified) on Tue, 2011-12-20 17:10.

works in perfection..thanks man that was absolutely briliant and simple !

Works like a gem... Thanx

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2011-12-20 07:53.

Works like a gem...
Thanx machan...

THe website does not unzip

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 2011-12-09 20:57.

THe website does not unzip the file

Firefox 8

Submitted by Kay (not verified) on Fri, 2011-12-09 15:38.

Works for Firefox 8. Thanks!

GENIAL !

Submitted by mus (not verified) on Mon, 2011-11-28 15:17.

Ca marche vraiment ! Merci beaucoup !

j'ai télécharger le fichier, puis je suis parti au repetroire de Mozella Firefox, le dossier "plugins" n'existai pas, donc j'ai du le créer et j'ai copier dedans le fichier NPSWF32.dll
j'ai redemarrer et mon navigateur et youpi ! a moi youtube et les jeux en flash ! hihihi

YOU ARE AWSOME!!!!!!!!!!

Submitted by mike (not verified) on Mon, 2011-11-21 12:09.

Thanks man !!!!

Awesome !!! Thanks

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 2011-11-13 09:31.

Thank you very much !!!
I am live now as my Flash is working.

Great.

Regards,

No admin rights

Submitted by KFP1 (not verified) on Fri, 2011-11-04 16:06.

Is there a workaround if you do not have write rights to the drive where the plugin folder is located in?
I'm stuck atm...

Yeah, use firefox portable on

Submitted by fabio on Fri, 2011-11-04 16:11.

Yeah, use firefox portable on a USB pen. See older comments pages.

AMAZING

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 2011-10-24 02:08.

Works for Firefox 7.

Thank You Very Much

Submitted by MichaelEvison (not verified) on Thu, 2011-10-20 20:33.

I am extremely fond of you now! I have a later version of Firefox so doubted this would work at all however your clear and open instructions worked superbly and got me around the wadmin blocking created when it was a work laptop.

A brilliant guide!

Thank You very, very much...

thanks i scanned it in my

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2011-10-11 01:46.

thanks i scanned it in my norton then downloaded now i can use flash on my laptop hehe

I love you

Submitted by Kev (not verified) on Sun, 2011-10-09 16:25.

You're a genius, my friend! I'll never forget what you've done.

Had to copy in safe mode.

Submitted by David M. (not verified) on Wed, 2011-10-05 18:02.

I could not copy the file to the Plugins folder until I booted into safe mode. Just keep this in mind. Obviously, not everyone will have the option to boot into safe mode. I guess I should be happy that NOT everything is locked down.

It works.

Submitted by Ovick (not verified) on Wed, 2011-10-05 09:42.

Hello! God job.Keep it up.
We need one more facility to make us permeable so that we can access installing software to my University PC.
Any idea,please help me.
Thank You.

May wanna have a look at

Submitted by fabio on Wed, 2011-10-05 09:46.

May wanna have a look at PortableApps, software you can run from USB drives/pen.

The download link is blocked

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 2011-10-03 15:59.

The download link is blocked FFS.

You may put it on a USB pen

Submitted by fabio on Mon, 2011-10-03 17:00.

You may put it on a USB pen and open it from there.

Firefox 7.0.1

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 2011-10-02 15:43.

Holy Sh*t So glad this worked out

I'm not sure what makes flash player fail so much on both Mozilla and IE it just fails randomly with me and it's so annoying.

I followed the steps and it worked again.
This is for the latest version so thanks a bunch now I hope it wont let me down for some time ^^

Greetz

Unbelievable, only a day

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 2011-10-03 15:49.

Unbelievable, only a day after and it crashed again, PFFFFF

So fed up with this BS, the countless things ive tried always ends up in failing.

YESSSSS!!!!!

Submitted by Divey (not verified) on Sat, 2011-09-24 02:17.

Ok for me I did this,

Go to:
C:\Documents and Settings\terryf\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla Firefox

Then create a "plugins" folder and copy the file into it.
That's it. Also this is for the newest Firefox 6. My computer is very locked by my work and I thought this would never work. Awesome and props to the poster for this. Thank You!!!!

WOW : IT WORKS...

Submitted by Sangeeta (not verified) on Wed, 2011-09-21 12:51.

I was a bit afraid & thought of it as a spam..
BUT....
It simply works...
thanks a ton

Firefox 6

Submitted by patrick (not verified) on Tue, 2011-09-20 15:47.

You helped me on my way by supplying the ZIP and method.

Please note that on FF 6 the plugins directory is not in the %APPDATA% anymore.

You can find the plugins directory in the \Mozilla Firefox installation directory.

Thanks,
P

Thanks

Submitted by Vish (not verified) on Fri, 2011-09-23 14:30.

Thanks both of you, worked for me! #Firefox6

Hi Fabio, Initially I got

Submitted by Tok Mat (not verified) on Wed, 2011-09-14 14:57.

Hi Fabio,
Initially I got error when I follow step 3. But what I did was open my local drive, create the Plugin folder inside Mozilla and copy the .dll file.

It works!! thanx so much...

THANKS!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 2011-09-09 16:13.

it actualy worked i made a plugins folder in my mozilla folder and put the file in and it worked! it was soo easy thanks!!

To Restricted?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2011-09-07 22:43.

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Plugins\ says it is restricted. does this mean that I won't be able to do this? I can get to it manually... and I have a plugins folder, and I've put the thing into it and It still doesn't work. I don't know why though...

You may wanna try firefox

Submitted by fabio on Thu, 2011-09-08 00:29.

You may wanna try firefox portable http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

wow......your da man thanks

Submitted by sam (not verified) on Wed, 2011-09-07 04:39.

wow......your da man
thanks man....

AWESOME

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-09-01 22:16.

Worked brilliantly, thank you.

You da man!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-09-01 14:51.

Worked for me Sept 1 2011 !
Thank you Fabio.

YOU ARE A GENIUS!

Submitted by Romar (not verified) on Wed, 2011-08-31 04:58.

You are a genius man.. thanks so much for this help.. at least, i could now see youtube in my computer.. :D cheers

It dosn't work for me with

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2011-08-30 11:31.

It dosn't work for me with tor-browser-1.3.27 (i've got most of webs blocked at work). Tried to copy npswf32.dll to different plugins dirs (like FirefoxPortable\Data\plugins, FirefoxPortable\App\DefaultData\plugins and FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox\plugins). Weird thing couse I've done this some timie before and it works then.

This works, surprisingly!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-08-11 12:24.

I have to use FF 3.6 at work, by using your instructions I can now use Flash Player files.

Thank you very much!

thanks

Submitted by scr (not verified) on Tue, 2011-08-16 12:42.

it works
huge thanks!!!

SIr, I followed every step .

Submitted by aditya (not verified) on Thu, 2011-08-04 19:27.

SIr, I followed every step . The link provided every is blocked so I downloaded the dll file separately and pasted into the plugon folder of fire fox. Still its not working..

can any one just provide the two files in winrar or compressed way so that I can download it and use it..For a second try..

Thx :)

Submitted by Blu (not verified) on Wed, 2011-08-03 10:11.

HI, my parents gave me this laptop from a garage sale and the admin was locked and we couldnt get in...anyways i had to make do with non-admin rights, which makes installing things hell, seeming i always wanna download games as such, this is the first real thing i was actually looking for, at first i couldnt find %APPDATA% but i kept looking at the wrong spot, i didnt read all your instructions, this i am going to pass onto my friends, thanks so much
By the way, this is totally off subject,
But Mark Zukkerburg, creator of facebook, is closing down facebook on 12 March 2012....why he doesnt just sell the rights i dont know :(

No

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2011-08-10 09:34.

No he isn't you vegetable.

goto

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2011-08-03 11:43.

goto http://www.trinityhome.org burn the disk and you can reset the admin password

Great! Thanks for help

Submitted by Lisa (not verified) on Wed, 2011-07-20 21:12.

Thank you very much, you made my day, your tip is THAT help I have been looking for. All the best to you :o)

Cheers!!

Excellent

Submitted by Amin (not verified) on Thu, 2011-07-07 11:05.

Excellent.. worked like a chocolate cake for Firefox.. Thanks a lot..!!

Excellent Work!

Submitted by T.A (not verified) on Fri, 2011-07-01 08:23.

Excellent Work!
Thanks a lot for helping!
It works perfectly. If there is no folder name Plugin in Mozilla folder then create it and copy that file in it.Then enjoy......:D

Worked like a CHAMP!!!

Submitted by NocoLoco (not verified) on Tue, 2011-06-28 20:51.

Admin is locked down here at my location and folowing these instructions worked perfectly! You are the Bestest in the westest!!!!! You rock! Thanks a bunch Fabio!

Wonderful

Submitted by man (not verified) on Tue, 2011-06-28 14:24.

what a stroke of geniuses
...

Thanking

Submitted by Ghulam Ali Rashidi (not verified) on Tue, 2011-06-28 12:56.

Thank you so much very muck
Finlay I got and i can see flash movies without stalling flash player

thanks so much

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