TechNote

SWF files prompt a message when played back locally

Issue

Note: In April 2006 Microsoft updated Internet Explorer as part of the Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) update. This update added special requirements for active content such as Flash.

As of April 2008 Microsoft has removed all Active Content requirements from Internet Explorer. The information in this TechNote is supplied for historical reference to the period from April 2006 to April 2008. For details on Microsoft's deprecation of Active Content, see MSDN. For details of Adobe's Active Content workarounds, see the Adobe Active Content Developer Center.

After the April 2006 update of Internet Explorer, when you playback a local version of an Adobe Flash Player movie (SWF) the message below is displayed. Flash Player end users viewing local content with the Internet Explorer versions described in the MSDN article will not experience this issue.

Reason

In the versions of Internet Explorer delivered with Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Internet Explorerblocks active content that is running locally on your computer unless the content is associated with a domain. This is due to the browser enforcing greater access restrictions for its content when it is local than when it comes from the Web.

Solution

The options in the browser information bar allow you to enable active content that you are trying to run in the browser. When the Enable Active Content dialog box (shown above) appears, click OK to run the content you are trying to access.

To playback SWF content without the Enable Active Content dialog box appearing, you will need to identify your content with a particular domain by embedding the Flash Movie in HTML and adding a "Mark of the web" to your HTML code. The following code is an example of a Mark of the web:

To include the code above in your projects, you will need to update the URL to point to your domain, and you need to update the number (0022) to the correct number for your domain. This number indicates how many characters are in your domain name (beginning with the "h" in http, and ending with the last letter of your domain--for example, the "m" in .com).

Alternatively you can view the content with an Internet Explorer version described in the MSDN article above.