IE6 Flash Eolas Patch Workaround
Date Published: 08 March 2006
I’ve been dealing with the IE6 Eolas Patch that was released last week (February 28) via Windows Update as an optional download. This patch affects IE by forcing the user to click on any active content (Flash being the one I’m concerned with here) to activate it before the use can interact with the content. Since I don’t want my Flash movies to alter their behavior in response to this patch, I’m interested in a workaround. The official KB article from Microsoft on this topic can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp. In it, you’ll learn that you can work around this issue if you use an external script file and document.write (or build using the DOM) your
I did some Googling on the issue as I prepared to implement my fix and found Richard Leggett’s post with some good links and useful comments. In particular, the comments led me to the Flash Object site, which looks like a very promising tool that I’m going to immediately implement in my solution (and which, I believe, will also eliminate most of the issues with the patch). A related page has a good amoung of information on the IE Eolas Patch and surrounding issues.
What I have not found, but would really like to see, is a way for IE users who have script debugging enabled to avoid this unwanted behavior. Since I run web developer websites, I expect that a large number of my users will have Visual Studio installed, which by default turns on Script Debugging (er, I’m sorry, it disables the Disable Script Debugging option). So even if I use Flash Object or any other workaround, most of my users are going to remain affected by this annoying “feature”. I’d appreciate a comment from anybody who finds a workaround that will work for IE users with Script Debugging turned on.
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About Ardalis
Software Architect
Steve is an experienced software architect and trainer, focusing on code quality and Domain-Driven Design with .NET.