SAS® Software and Its Use of the Adobe Flash Player
Quick Overview & What You Need to Do
Some of your SAS products might be affected by Adobe moving its Flash technology to end-of-life status. Information for transitioning your software as a result of the Adobe Flash Player end-of-life status is outlined below. SAS moved products that rely on Adobe Flash components to Limited Support on December 31, 2020. Please contact your SAS Account Executive if you have questions.
Microsoft Update
Microsoft will be permanently removing the Adobe Flash Player from Windows and Microsoft browsers during 2021 through the Windows Update and Cumulative Update process for Windows operating systems. In addition, Microsoft will be removing the Microsoft Edge (legacy) browser through a Cumulative Update in April. These updates may affect your ability to run SAS® applications in a Microsoft browser. Please see Microsoft’s blog post “Update on Adobe Flash Player End of Support” to evaluate your options and refer to the SAS 9.4 Support for Web Browsers page for information on browser support.
Background on Adobe Flash Player
Applications in the SAS® 9.4 platform – as well as many SAS® solutions that are based on SAS 9.3 and SAS 9.4 – used Adobe Flash Player to provide interactive user interfaces. Adobe announced that it intended to move its Flash technology to end-of-life status, and would cease to update and distribute the Flash Player at the end of 2020. Adobe released its final Adobe Flash Player update on Dec. 8. Most major browser vendors already included security warnings for users of Flash content, disabled Flash by default in 2019, and are expected to remove support for Flash completely to match the end-of-life direction that is stated by Adobe.
SAS continues to closely monitor Adobe communications on Adobe Flash Player end-of-life (EOL). Visit Adobe Flash Player EOL General Information Page for questions about Flash and news from Adobe.
The SAS position and recommendations for removing the Adobe Flash Player dependency in SAS software are discussed below.
Position and Recommendations
As customers transition from SAS software releases that used Flash, SAS makes the following recommendations for customers with specific product licenses:
- SAS recommends that customers with SAS products that map directly to comparable offerings on the SAS® Viya® platform should modernize their respective SAS environments by upgrading them to the SAS Viya platform.
- Customers who have a mix of SAS products with and without comparable offerings on SAS Viya can choose to upgrade their SAS environments to SAS 9.4M7 (TS1M7) or SAS 9.4M8 (TS1M8).
Per SAS’ policy about SAS software support when third-party major browser vendors drop support, SAS moved products that rely on Adobe Flash components to Limited Support. To check the support level for your SAS product, please consult the SAS Support Levels by Product page.
Read our technical paper, Modernizing Your SAS® UIs: Removing Dependencies on Adobe Flash, for more information on the steps you need to take to ease the transition.
Options for Continued Use of Adobe Flash
As stated, SAS will provide limited support for SAS products that rely on Adobe Flash. For current information about using Adobe Flash beyond 2020, visit Adobe Flash Player EOL Enterprise Information Page and the Flash Player Administration Guide referenced at that location. Some popular browsers may also offer methods to continue using Adobe Flash for a limited period of time. For example, Microsoft published this update about Microsoft Edge (September 2020).
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