What Is Flash OCX?

Adobe Flash, formerly Macromedia Flash, is a multimedia technology that developers can use to add animations, including text or graphics, to websites or applications such as screen savers. Users may receive errors regarding Flash when using third party screen savers.

Background

OLE Control Extension is a component of programs that other programs can access on the Windows operating system. Programs and applications such as screen savers that use Flash, may attempt to load the application by accessing Flash's control that uses the ".ocx" extension.

Signifnicance

When an application tries to access the Flash control, it may look for the file "flash.ocx." However, this file is specific to Flash version 7 and the user's version of Flash may use a different name for this file such as "flash9.ocx." When an application cannot find this file, the user may experience an error stating that "flash.ocx" is not found.

Solution

Users who wish to remove this error can rename the file in the Flash folder within the "Program Files" directory, if using Windows. To ensure that all programs can find the file, the user should first copy the existing control file and then rename the copy to "flash.ocx." Alternatively, the user may also consider halting use of an application that is searching for the non-existent file and uninstalling the program or screen saver.

References

• Chron HelpLine: Flash.ocx error
• Webopedia: OCX
• Adobe: Installation issues when switching between release and debugger versions during development and testing
• Tech Terms: Flash