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You are at tk here: Howto: Installing Flash Without Actually Installing it

These days, the Adobe Flash player is a plugin that you just can't live without. Whether you're watching cats talk on YouTube or wasting time on addictive games, Flash is required to save your ass from boredom.

But what if you're stuck on a limited (Windows) user account somewhere? You could download Portable Firefox or Portable Opera to spare yourself the monstrosity that is Internet Explorer, but your limited privileges just won't allow you to sneak a Flash install past security. And without Flash, well, just thinking about that is depressing.

Look ma! Flash without admin privileges!

What Adobe neglected to tell you is that the nice little package you downloaded isn't necessary at all. Sure it makes everything foolproof and easy to manage, but what you don't know can kill you (imagine an hour without YouTube!). Don't bang your head on the keyboard yet, I'm here to save your day.

1. The procedure for installing Flash with limited privileges is a simple affair. First you'll need a copy of Adobe Flash for Firefox/Netscape/Opera, which you can download here.


2. Next, grab the portable version of 7-Zip and extract it to a folder.


3. Run 7-Zip (double click 7-ZipPortable.exe) and browse to the folder where you saved the Flash executable in step 1.


4. In 7-Zip, right-click on the Flash executable. A menu should popup. Select Open Inside by clicking on it.


5. You should now see a few files and a folder. Copy out NPSWF32.dll and flashplayer.xpt by dragging and dropping them somewhere.


6. 1. If you use Portable Firefox, copy the 2 files in step 5 to C:\FirefoxPortable\Data\plugins. If you installed Portable Firefox in a different directory, browse to that folder and copy the 2 files into DRIVE:\DIR-YOU-INSTALLED-PORTABLE-FIREFOX\Data\plugins.
   
   
   2. For normal Firefox, those 2 files should go into C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins. You know what to do if you installed into a different directory.
   
   
   3. For portable Opera, those 2 files should go into C:\opera9usben\program\plugins. You know what to do if you installed into a different directory.
   
   
   4. For normal Opera, those 2 files should go into C:\Program Files\Opera\program\plugins. You know what to do if you installed into a different directory.


7. Profit!

If you're using Internet Explorer, you're SOL. :P Internet Explorer uses the Flash ActiveX control which requires administrative privileges (to register the file).