VMware Flash End of Life and Supportability

Products

VMware NSX for vSphere VMware vRealize Operations 6.x

Issue/Introduction

Adobe Flash Player is going End of Life (EOL) on Dec 31, 2020. The major web browser manufacturers have aligned their efforts to disable/stop running Flash applications around this date.

Resolution

These VMware Products are impacted by the Adobe Flash End of Life. Further instructions regarding Flash dependencies are discussed below the table.

Note: This article is actively getting updated. Click on the “subscribe” button to get update email notifications.

VMware's recommended approach for customers are to upgrade their VMware vCenter Server(s) to 6.7 Update 3 by December 31, 2020 and use the vSphere (HTML5) Client to manage the vSphere environment.

Customers that cannot immediately upgrade to vSphere 6.7 Update 3 can use the HTML5 Client to manage a vSphere environment. For more information on unavailable functionality, see Functionality Updates for the vSphere Client.

With the launch of vSphere 6.7 U3m, the vSphere Client (H5 client) contains a vSphere Update Manager Plugin for the Windows version of VMware vCenter.
This allows Windows vCenter users to use the full functionality of Update Manager in the vSphere Client.

VMware Product	Impacted Versions	Recommended Minimum Version	Notes
vSphere	6.7 and below	6.7 Update 3 6.7 U3m for Windows versions of VMware vCenter	In the vSphere (Flash) Web Client, you see a message similar to: The vSphere Flash-based Web Client is deprecated in vSphere 6.7. We recommend switching to the all-new modern HTML5-based vSphere client as the primary client and only reverting to the Flash-based Web Client when necessary. VMware vSphere 6.5 End of General Support is November 15th, 2021. VMware vSphere 6.7 End of General Support has been extended to October 15th, 2022. Both these versions are shipped with the vSphere Flash-based Client with them. For more information, see: VMware Lifecycle Product Matrix Announcing Extension of vSphere 6.7 General Support Period Also, see: VMware vSphere Web (Flash) Client End of Life Blog VMware vSphere Web Client Browser Support Matrix Customers do not need to upgrade the ESXi hosts to 6.7 for this purpose of addressing the Flash Client supportability issue. Refer to the VMware Compatibility Matrices for supported versions of VMware products with vCenter Server 6.7 Update 3. Depending on the current deployment/configuration, customers might have to upgrade some of the other VMware and/or 3rd party products before they upgrade their vCenter Server to 6.7 Update 3. Also, VMware Partner Plug-ins for the HTML5-based vSphere Client are different from the solutions for the Flash-based Client. For more information, see the VMware Compatibility Guide and search for the vSphere Web Client selecting the version you are using. Using Update Manager functionality in the vSphere Client (HTML5-based GUI) is only supported for Update Manager that runs in the vCenter Server Appliance. Click here for more details.
Horizon	7.8 and below	7.10	Horizon Administrator (Flash) is replaced by Horizon Console (HTML5). Horizon Console was initially released with 7.8 but did not reach feature complete until 7.11 Switch to the Horizon Console Now! Blog Adobe Flash Player End-of-Life and VMware Horizon
Cloud Director	10.0 and below	10.1	VMware Cloud Director for Service Providers 9.7 (EOL: Mar. 2021) VMware Cloud Director for Service Providers 10.0 (EOL: Sept. 2021) Versions of VMware Cloud Director older than 10.0 were shipped with Flash-based Provider and Tenant portals enabled by default. VMware Cloud Director 10.0 disables the Flash-based UIs by default but significant features were added to the HTML5 provider portal in 10.1 and 10.2. VMware's recommended approach for customers is to upgrade to VMware Cloud Director 10.1 or higher version by Dec 2020 and use the Cloud Director HTML interface to manage the environment.
NSX for vSphere	6.4 and below	6.4.9	Functionality Updates for VMware NSX for vSphere - UI Plugin for vSphere Client
Site Recovery Manager	6.5 and below	8.1	What's New in SRM and vSphere Replication 8.3 Blog
vSAN	6.5 and below	6.7 Update 3
vRealize Orchestrator	7.5 and below	7.6
vRealize Operations	6.5 and below	6.6

The alternative approach which is not recommended by VMware is to stop automatic updates on your web browser and use the Flash-based User Interfaces (UI) on a browser which still supports Flash.

VMware will continue to support Flash-based user interfaces for VMware product versions that are within the support period.

Flash Player playback will be blocked by default post End of Life. The Enterprise enablement functionality available in Adobe’s latest releases of Flash Player can be used to allow content from specified sites to be displayed (See below for an example).

Caution: VMware will not provide support for the instructions below; use at your own risk.

For more information, see the Enterprise enablement support section of the Adobe Flash Player EOL Enterprise Information Page.

For example "mms.cfg"

EOLUninstallDisable=1
EnableAllowList=1
AllowListPreview=1
AllowListUrlPattern=https://FQDN_Of_The_Target_System/

For example: FQDN of the vCenter Server

This is tested with:

Adobe Flash Player 32.0.0.445
Firefox 81.0.2
IE 11.0.9600.19846
Microsoft Edge Version 86.0.622.51
Google Chrome Version 86.0.4240.111

The location of the mms.cfg file depends on the operating system and the browser in use. For more information, refer to your vendor documentation.
For example:

Operating System and Browser	Location
Google Chrome on Windows	%localappdata%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Pepper Data\Shockwave Flash\System\mms.cfg
Edge Chromium on Windows	%localappdata%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Pepper Data\Shockwave Flash\System\mms.cfg
32-bit Windows	%windir%\System32\Macromed\Flash\mms.cfg
64-bit Windows	%windir%\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash\mms.cfg
MacOS	/Library/Application Support/Macromedia
Google Chrome on MacOS	/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Pepper Data/Shockwave Flash/System

Note: If the “System” directory does not exist, you need to create it manually.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: VMware is not responsible for the reliability of any data, opinions, advice, or statements made on third- party websites. Inclusion of such links does not imply that VMware endorses, recommends, or accepts any responsibility for the content of such sites.