Windows 8.1: Flash video in Steam was working, then I installed Firefox, and now it is not

Edit 8/15/2014: It appears this has been fixed in the latest Steam patch.

In Windows 8/8.1 64-bit, I know that Flash is built in to Internet Explorer 11 so you don't have to download it separately. And then I installed Steam, and videos in the Steam store worked fine so I guess Steam knew how to hook into the Flash player that was built in to IE 11... but then I installed Firefox, because there are a few websites that just don't work in IE and plus Firefox has a nice built in PDF reader, but I still use IE 11 as my primary web browser. Now Steam videos don't work any more. They tell me that I should go install the Flash plugin.

How can I make Steam go back to using the IE11-based Flash player that it was using before I installed Firefox? I don't want to go install a Flash plugin for Firefox when Steam videos were working fine before I installed Firefox in the first place.

Ryan Ries

Posted 2014-07-17T01:23:46.490

Reputation: 512

Did you by chance make Firefox the default browser? If you did then you need to install the Flash plug-in. – Ramhound – 2014-07-17T03:07:16.353

Nope, Firefox is not my default browser and never was. What's funny is that if I click the link that's embedded within the Steam video that says "click here to install the Flash plugin," the link opens up in... Internet Explorer. – Ryan Ries – 2014-07-17T03:56:57.130

Humor me. Use IE to set the default browser again to IE11. – Ramhound – 2014-07-17T05:10:11.020

Doesn't help. :( – Ryan Ries – 2014-07-18T00:36:38.007

Answers

I am using win 8.1 64 bit and for some reason steam videos stopped working. I don't have Firefox or Chrome installed. I found this link. It worked for me and I didn't have to install another browser. http://store.steampowered.com/gotflash

RonnieRawdog

Posted 2014-07-17T01:23:46.490

Reputation: 11

Steam was not playing videos on my 8.1 machine, even though IE11 already came with the latest version of flash. This fix works great!!!! Thank you. – Miguel Sevilla – 2014-07-29T04:34:59.600

I just had the same problem in order to fix it I went to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ in chrome (wont work in ie11) and downloaded the plugin. there's a link for it in the second sentence.

Steven Spencer Jr

Posted 2014-07-17T01:23:46.490

Reputation: 1

1Thank you, but my primary goal is to not have to install anything extra. It was working fine. Installing FF broke it. I don't want to have to install something else to fix the thing that was broken by installing something. For now until I find a better solution, when I want to watch a video from Steam, I right click it, copy URL, paste the URL into IE and just watch it in IE. – Ryan Ries – 2014-07-19T19:46:09.480

I have had this issue as well and it all started 3 weeks ago not sure if it was a windows or steam patch that did it but I will not install adobe's flash player when they can make it use the webkit html5 player, since it uses webkit already.

Ken

Posted 2014-07-17T01:23:46.490

Reputation: 1