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I’ve been having a lot of problems when I try to watch Flash videos on my computer. Sometimes Firefox stops the movie after 2 seconds. Sometimes Firefox and Internet Explorer just close.

It’s been very frustrating. I’ve been blaming the problem on an incompatibility between Flash and Vista.

It turns out that the problem may be with Flash and HP. The same problem seems to happen on HP XP computers as well.

Last week HP sent out an update to try to fix the problem. If you have an XP machine, the update may install as advertised. However, it’s a little more difficult on a computer running Vista.

The upgrade must be run as administrator. Here are the steps for installing the upgrade.

• Download the upgrade and note the location on your computer
• Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the location
• Right click on the file
• Select Run as Administrator

The program will tell you that it is going to “Flash the BIOS”. This means that it will change the program that controls your computer’s hardware.

• Close all open applications
• Make sure your computer is connected to external power ad not running on battery power
• Don’t turn off your computer or interrupt the process once it starts

The problem seems to be better since I followed this procedure. I’m not ready to declare the problem “fixed”. I’ll let you know if the problem reappears.

Let me know if you are having problems with Flash on your HP and if the new BIOS fixes it.

Write on,

Lynn Jordan