Flash in Windows 8

Starting tomorrow, we are updating Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8 and Windows RT to enable Flash content to run by default. On Windows 8, all Flash content continues to be enabled for IE on the desktop.

As we have seen through testing over the past several months, the vast majority of sites with Flash content are now compatible with the Windows experience for touch, performance, and battery life. With this update, the curated Compatibility View (CV) list blocks Flash content in the small number of sites that are still incompatible with the Windows experience for touch or that depend on other plug-ins.

We believe having more sites “just work” in IE10 improves the experience for consumers, businesses, and developers. As a practical matter, the primary device you walk around with should give you access to all the Web content on the sites you rely on. Otherwise, the device is just a companion to a PC. Because some popular Web sites require Adobe Flash and do not offer HTML5 alternatives, Adobe and Microsoft continue to work together closely to deliver a Flash Player optimized for the Windows experience.

	Windows 8	Windows RT
Immersive IE	Enabled unless on CV list	Enabled unless on CV list
Desktop IE	Enabled for all sites	Enabled unless on CV list

This updates the immersive IE experience on Windows 8, and both the immersive and desktop IE experiences on Windows RT. The update will be made available to customers with Windows Update. The curated CV list applies to IE on the desktop for Windows RT since the most common reason to block Flash is that the site relies on other plug-ins that are not available on Windows RT.

More compatible Web experiences

Our approach to Flash in Windows is practical for Windows customers and developers. For Windows 8, we worked with Adobe to include a version of Flash that is optimized for touch, performance, security, reliability, and battery life. Adobe made substantial changes to the Flash player to align with the Windows 8 experience goals. We shipped this optimized Flash component as part of Windows 8, and we service it through Windows Update. IE10 with Flash on Windows 8 enables people to see more of the Web working with high quality, especially compared with the experience in other touch-first or tablet browsers and devices.

When we released Windows 8 and Windows RT we used the IE Compatibility View (CV) list to enable sites to run Flash content compatible with the Windows 8 experience, including touch responsiveness, performance, and battery life. In Windows 8, IE on the desktop runs all Flash content, like it does on Windows 7.

Looking at our engineering experience with Flash and Windows 8 and RT, as developers improve their Flash content, the vast majority of sites with Flash content that we have tested are now compatible with the Windows experience goals. Of the thousands of domains tested for Flash compatibility to date, we have found fewer than 4% are still incompatible, in the most part because the core site experience requires other ActiveX controls in addition to Flash. With Windows 8 in the hands of customers and developers, we listened to feedback around the experience of Web sites with Flash.

Developing compatible Flash content

For developers building sites with Flash content, this document posted on MSDN goes into more technical detail about the criteria used to place sites on the Flash CV block list, as well as steps that developers can take to test their content in immersive IE and submit their sites to be removed from the block list. The documentation also includes a best practices guide to help developers, designers, and content publishers create experiences with Flash that play well in IE for touch, responsiveness, and battery life. These best practices complement existing recommendations and tools like modern.IE for authoring touch-friendly HTML5 sites. Also, starting tomorrow, modern.IE enables testing whether or not your site is on the curated Flash CV block list.

For the development community, platform continuity and technology choice are important. Flash in IE10 on Windows 8 and Windows RT provides a bridge for existing sites to transition to HTML5 technologies where it makes sense and at a pace that is right for the experiences they want to deliver to their customers. With today’s update to Windows 8 and Windows RT, consumers can experience more of the Web by default.

-- Rob Mauceri, Group Program Manager, Internet Explorer

Comments

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Any change for support of Silverlight in IE 10 RT?

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight, please.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Support Silverlight too.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  YES! we need Silverlight in Windows RT. Our corporate apps are done with Silverlight.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  So we went from no plugins in IE10  (Therefore killed our projects and moved to a different platform) to Plugins in IE10.  This is why I hate developing with MS.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight please.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  This is great news! Thanks Microsoft.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  flash4life

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  And what about Server 2012?  Does the same thing occur there too?

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  I'm with the others, I want Silverlight support as well. It's a MS product and I hate it when I as a MS developer, go to a MS website using my MS Surface RT, and I can't do something because the MS designers of the MS website used a MS product called MS Silverlight. ARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Great, this is how it should have been from the get go. Well done in FINALLY fixing a glaring error in Windows 8.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  I think Microsoft is abandon Silverlight but it's bored for Windows RT because some web services works only with Silverlight.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  By Web service I think to Bing StreetSide for exemple.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  MS will be saving lots of businesses if Silverlight is supported. So please MS, don't follow others lead but be a leader that will be followed... bring silverlight back!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight support would be even awesome to gain more of a foothold in business.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight now, you condescending idiots.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Thanks MS!!!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Finally a move in the right direction towards what MS always had, user's choice, as most people already mentioned, reconsider SL and make your software stack complete again.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  What!!!???? So, they support the "other guy's plugin", but still don't support their own plugin... Nice support for Silverlight developers! Yay!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  @SVG+SMIL with JS-Fallback for IE?

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Many Thanks, MS!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  user friendly?  I think NOT!  grrrrr

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Why don't you support Silverlight?

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  When the ship is sinking, you clutch at every available straw.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Great news!  This is a better approach, to be sure.  I would echo many others here in also saying that Silverlight support in Windows RT, the modern UI version of IE on Windows 8, and maybe even Windows Phone is a much needed and logical next step.  In my previous job we spent multiple years and multiple millions of dollars building an incredibly complex LOB Silverlight app that even to this date would still be very difficult (maybe even impossible) to do in HTML5/JavaScript.  It's a great shame that Microsoft's own tablet and phone operating systems don't support Microsoft's own (and very fantastic) technology.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Please allow silverlight for Windows RT as well, we have apps that are required and can't run on RT.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  This is good to see, but the continued silence on Silverlight (in the face of obvious demand) is deafening...

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight please!!! Many Thanks MS!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  OK THANKS

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight please!!!!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Need Silverlight

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Please ENABLE SILVERLIGHT on WindowsRT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight, please.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight is absolutely required, particular on RT. Otherwise the platform is dead. Silverlight is used by most Video on Demand Companies in Europe: Lovefilm(Amazon); Maxdome; Watchever; etc.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Please enable Silverlight also

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  We need Silverlight too !

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight please. Today!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  SILVERLIGHT!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Errrm ok thanks for nothing microsoft, What we actually need is silverlight for RT.....IDIOTS!!!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight, please!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight please!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Thanks, great news. Now Silverlight, pretty please!!!!!!!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  As most others: Please add Silverlight! MS put a lot of effort in persuading devs to develope LOB applications using Silverlight. We invested a lot and don't want to have to convert it all to WinRT and lose our Mac compatibility in the process.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight&Windows Media Player,please!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  WE ALL NEED SILVERLIGHT ON WINDOWS RT !!!!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Will wp8 follow?

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  I hope the next update contains the Silverlight player!

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Thank you MS and the IE Team for your work to ensure great user experiences. Ignore the inflammatory self serving comments - the professional developers appreciate your hard work.

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2013
  Silverlight you hypocrites!

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  silverlight suxxx, forget about it.

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  Silverlight please ... maybe someone could start a facebook campaign???

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  Sinofsky is gone, bring back the Silverlight

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  I second (?!?) the cry for full Silverlight support on Windows 8/RT

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  Can we get the same on Xbox IE?

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  pleas

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  Silverlight should be built-in into IE10 :( It is really a shame that Microsoft does not supports its own technology. Why should developers stay with Microsoft technologies?

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 12, 2013
  Leave Silverlight in grave, which it already is. Go further with HTML5.

• Anonymous
  March 13, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 13, 2013
  porque no puedo

• Anonymous
  March 13, 2013
  how about server 2012 ??

• Anonymous
  March 13, 2013
  how about server 2012 ??

• Anonymous
  March 13, 2013
  Silverlight!!!

• Anonymous
  March 13, 2013
  Now all we need is for them to start supporting their own product that they use on their own websites - Silverlight!!!

• Anonymous
  March 13, 2013
  This is great news! Thanks Microsoft.

• Anonymous
  March 14, 2013
  Silverlight please!

• Anonymous
  March 14, 2013
  I would point you to http://team.silverlight.net for more information on the future of Silverlight (debate and all).

• Anonymous
  March 14, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 16, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 16, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 16, 2013
  silverlight please silverlight please silverlight please silverlight please silverlight please silverlight please silverlight please silverlight please

• Anonymous
  March 16, 2013
  me gusta

• Anonymous
  March 16, 2013
  Silverlight too! you caused us too much pain so far! start thinking more about your customers...

• Anonymous
  March 16, 2013
  העגרד

• Anonymous
  March 17, 2013
  Hi, How about IE10 on WP8? When will it support embed YouTube vdo?

• Anonymous
  March 17, 2013
  Please support your own plugin (silverlight) aswell!!!

• Anonymous
  March 17, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 17, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 17, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 18, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 19, 2013
  oke dit is echt zo vervelend want nu kan ik niet eens effe een leuk spelletje spelen op me laptop

• Anonymous
  March 22, 2013
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• Anonymous
  March 24, 2013
  Silverlight Please...!!

• Anonymous
  March 24, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 24, 2013
  The comment has been removed