For security reasons new builds of Microsoft Office for Microsoft 365 on Windows block activation of Flash, Silverlight, and Shockwave controls. Most users won't be impacted, but for some users this may cause one of the following issues:
When you click on an embedded Flash movie in PowerPoint Slide Show, nothing happens even though this worked before.
Power View in Excel does not work anymore (because it uses Silverlight). You may see an error message that says 'Activate method of OLEObject class failed'.
Flash content is displayed as a blank page with an X when you click a folder that has the folder homepage set in Outlook.
Unblock these controls by editing the registry
This article describes how to enable Microsoft Silverlight in Internet Explorer. Use if you are repeatedly prompted to install Silverlight or if you are unable to install the out of browser version of TC2000 on a PC. Make sure Silverlight is set to enabled in Internet Explorer. In approximately 15 months from now, Silverlight will effectively cease to exist. On October 12, 2021, users will no longer be able to download the IE plugin needed to use applications created with it.
Caution: Follow these steps carefully. Serious problems may occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Before you start we recommend that you have a known good backup of your registry. See this article for more information: How to back up and restore the registry in Windows.
Exit all Microsoft Office applications
Start the Registry Editor by tapping Start (or pressing the Windows key on your keyboard) then typing regedit and pressing enter.
Locate the proper registry subkey. It will be one of the following:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftOffice16.0CommonCOM Compatibility
(for 64-bit Office, or 32-bit Office on 32-bit Windows)or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWOW6432NodeMicrosoftOffice16.0CommonCOM Compatibility
(for 32-bit Office on 64-bit Windows)Note: The COM Compatibility node may not be present by default. If you don't see it, add it by right-clicking the Common node and choosing Add Key.
Add a new subkey with the CLSID of the control you want to unblock as the value by right-clicking the COM Compatibility node and choosing Add Key.
Control
CLSID
Flash
{D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000}
{D27CDB70-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000}
Silverlight
{DFEAF541-F3E1-4c24-ACAC-99C30715084A}
Shockwave
{233C1507-6A77-46A4-9443-F871F945D258}
Note: For Flash you'll need to add two subkeys, one for each of its CLSID's.
Within that new subkey we're going to add two new values by right-clicking the new subkey and choosing New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
A REG_DWORD hexadecimal value called Compatibility Flags with a value of 0.
A REG_DWORD hexadecimal value called ActivationFilterOverride with a value of 1.
Exit Registry Editor and start your application. The control you need should be unblocked now.
Example
- The Official site of Microsoft Silverlight. Download and install the latest version Microsoft Silverlight plug in for your browser.
- Microsoft Silverlight. History Talk (0) Share. Microsoft ended development in 2013, and it is planned to cease working in 2021.
For example, to unblock Silverlight in order to get Power View working in Office 2016, 64-bit, on Windows you would locate this registry key:
Ms Silverlight Demo
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftOffice16.0CommonCOM Compatibility
Note: Remember, if the COM Compatibility node doesn't exist yet you'll need to create it.
Then add a subkey with the value {DFEAF541-F3E1-4c24-ACAC-99C30715084A}.
In this case, the resulting path is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftOffice16.0CommonCOM Compatibility{DFEAF541-F3E1-4c24-ACAC-99C30715084A}.
To that subkey you'll add a REG_DWORD value called Compatibility Flags with a value of 0, and a REG_DWORD value called ActivationFilterOverride with a value of 1.
See Also
Ms Silverlight 5
Learn how to uninstall Microsoft Silverlight from Windows command prompt using WMIC command.
The below command helps to uninstall Silverlight from any Windows box.
This works on all Windows versions – Windows 7, Windows 10 and even pre-Win7 versions too. The command needs to be executed from elevated command prompt, as it requires admin privileges to uninstall software.
Example
Example run where I could successfully uninstall Silverlight from a Windows 7 computer.
Ms Silverlight 5
A non-zero return value indicates unsuccessful attempt
Here the command was run from an ordinary command prompt, not elevated admin command prompt, so it returned 1603 without uninstalling the software.
Can we uninstall Silverlight safely
Microsoft Silverlight For Windows 10
Yes, we can safely remove Silverlight without having any impact on how your system/other applications work. Microsoft deprecated Silverlight way back in 2012. Silverlight was Microsoft’s version of Adobe Flash and supported video streaming and rich media. All popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox and IE have already stopped supporting Silverlight. I’m sure all popular web applications running on internet have already got off it, so there’s no use keeping Silverlight on your Windows box.