Proposed withdrawal of Adobe Shockwave Player

What is happening

In recent years, fewer and fewer internet resources have used Adobe Shockwave for displaying multimedia content. For this reason, we are proposing to remove the Shockwave Player from the Windows 7 Service.

As Shockwave regularly vulnerable to security exploits, removing it will improve the security of the service, and save staff time currently taken up when updating it.

How will the works affect me?

Before we can remove the player from the service, we need to know that it is no longer required for any University business.

If you use any resource that makes use of Shockwave Player on Windows 7 Service staff or lab computers, please e-mail IT.Services@lboro.ac.uk. Please include the URL to the resource in your correspondence.

If you are unsure of whether any web content is using Shockwave, you can find out by:

1. Visit the relevant webpage and wait for the content to load.
2. Right-click the animation/content that you believe may use Shockwave.
3. If the right-click menu that appears contains an entry named ‘About Shockwave Player…’ then the page is using Shockwave.

Timescales

Please inform us via e-mail if you use Shockwave content for University business by the end of the current term (Friday 12^th December). If we are not informed of any business need for Adobe Shockwave Player on the Windows 7 Service by this date, ITS will schedule removal of the plugin early in the new year.

Further information

Please contact the IT Service Desk: it.services@lboro.ac.uk<mailto:it.services@lboro.ac.uk>, 01509 222333.