Windows RT Flash Player Tool brings Flash content to your Surface browser

By George Ponder
published

If you're looking for a way to view web pages on your Surface RT, or any other Windows RT device, there's a tool out there to let you update the Default Whitelist. In doing so you can authorize web pages to display Flash content in your browser.

Just download the Windows RT Flash Player Tool here (opens in new tab) and install it to your Windows RT tablet. You can download/install from the Windows RT browser or transfer it via USB, SkyDrive or other means.

Windows RT Flash Player Tool

Once installed, just follow the on-screen prompts to add new sites to the Windows RT Whitelist. Once added, you should be able to view Flash content from your Windows RT browser.

Source: NeoWin (opens in new tab); Thanks, Lorenzo, for the tip!

George Ponder
George Ponder

George is the Reviews Editor at Windows Central, concentrating on Windows 10 PC and Mobile apps. He's been a supporter of the platform since the days of Windows CE and uses his current Windows 10 Mobile phone daily to keep up with life and enjoy a game during down time.

70 Comments
  • In general I haven't run into problems with flash sites not working on my Surface, but it is nice to have this available for those rare occasions I would need it.
  • Pretty sure Flash is already available? It was in an update shortly after launch.
  • Not all websites.
  • Flash is built into the browser, but there's a white list of known "good" sites that will work. As the article indicates, this tool will let you add sites to the white list.
  • Not with porn sites.
  • I have had testers confirm it has worked with adult websites as well. At the end of the day flash is flash. What you may need to know is that some websites hosts videos on there site from another website you will then need to white list that website as well.
  • I think the hosting and multiple links is a bit dubious...not really ideal for security. =/
  • Ok, thanks!
  • porn sites quickly adopted HTML5 video redirects for Surface and other Win8 devices.  They quickly did the same thing for the IE browser on Xbox too.
     
    if developers adopted new and emerging tech as fast as the porn industry, Win8/WP8 would have a huge app count by now.
  • That was totally awesome...yes! =p
  • Hahaha the porn industry is awesome maybe we should enlist their help expanding the WP user base :)
  • Hahaha...made me laugh.
  • Are websites ever going to 100% drop flash for html5/silverlight? And why does Silverlight on wp7 not work? Or is it a version issue?
  • Silverlight works fine on my hd7
  • Won't updates from MS overwrite your changes? They do when I manually change the .xml file.
  • Hey I'm the Dev for this app. You are right It would however I have wrote the app so that it disables automatic update from MS :) you can re-enable it by selecting option 2
  • FINALLY!!! An easier way. Thanks guys
  • Hey DroidKid here, no problem let me know if you have any issues! 
  • Thank you. Will try it as soon as I get home.
  • Is it possible to work something like this out for WP?
  • Try Flash Cinema
  • There's no flash for WP. Period. There's an app that will play videos from flash sites though. Not exactly sure how it works. http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=6e5424ae-04ac-4e76-855b-a8cc9ddcc38c
  • It works - just tried it.
  • Only if this works on WP8 :-S...
  • Nice
  • Anyone tried DuelingNetwork.com yet? That's the ONE site I would use this for... :(
  • Hey i'm the dev for this app, it should work I would try it but I don't have access to an RT device right now but It should work fine
  • You can do this by editingt the whitelist manually too.  I did a write up in the forum a month or so ago.
    http://forums.wpcentral.com/windows-8/207554-guide-how-enable-any-flash-site-metro-ie-windows-8-rt.html
  • You are right you can. I made this tool for the adverage user who did not feel comfortable editing the white list on there own.
  • I know,  and I think it is a great tool.  I'll probably download it myself as doing it manually can be tedious.  I just wanted to post for those who would rather do it themselves than with software but maybe didn't know you could.  Plus its always good to know how to do something yourself even if you will be using software to do it for you, just in case.
  • That is very true! I will keep your written thread in mind when someone asks me what it does. Well written! 
  • I was manually doing this then had to reset my Surface to factory. Pretty easy to do and not worry about any personal files since they are in the cloud, except the whitelist. Does this tool make a backup of the whitelist and can it restore from a backup?
  • No it does not but I will definitely look into that for the next release version 2.0 I will look into a back up and restore option thank you for the input
  • I use one site via the reg hack, as I read MS disabled white list before. The reg works but only one site at once
  • No it still works :)
  • Have you tried if it works without deleting the browsing history? Maybe deleting the cache would be enough :) I personally could not get it to work without deleting the history, but maybe with this tool it might work.
    Good luck with the development, it's nice to get more happy users!
  • Actually, I've discovered the whitelist thing in oktober and the original thread contains some Q&A's which might be very usefull if users run into problems.
    http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1961793
    This tool neatly automates the process to save some users the hassle of going trough editing files. So basically what you posted is nothing new and was known before and posted on various blogs, this tool on the other hand is new and does all the dirty work for you :)
  • Here is a howto video as well http://youtu.be/YUg7FOBscDk
  • Nice work. Much appreciated!!!
  • It would be cool if you could create an IE toolbar with your script running in the background, so when the user comes across a flash site you have the option to "add site to whitelist" in one click. Then you'd be my personal hero.
  • If only Firefox worked on RT devices, and/or Microsoft allowed true third party software, instead of purposely blocking it. That was the biggest reason I have stayed PC all these years. But now, I might just join the heard of Isheep sense Apple is actually opening, albeit slowly, doors as Droid n' Micro move closer to the buyonlyusorleave mentality.  Must sign in to microaccount to sync my life...googledroid must leave YouTube comment, need input.
  • Great now just need a workaround for Silverlight
  • Finally a way to get play.spotify.com to work, I can finally play my spotify songs!!
     
  • How? I added play.spotify.com, but no web player?
  • Anyone have any luck getting streaming websites like frontrowsports or atdhe to work?
  • Yes. But you don't add firstrow or atdhe as the whitelist site. all they do is embed video from OTHER sites. You need to add the actual site the video is coming from.
  • How do u find the "OTHER" sites? i'm quite curious about this as I use those sites as well.
  •  
     
    Hey try accessing the website on a non RT device and right click the video and click properties it may show the video link. if not you may need to view the html source of the page by right clicking somewhere on the website and clicking view source
  • This is more time consuming than just manually editting the file...
     
    I just keep a secondary backed up file and another that I edit when I need to and replace with. Plus you can mass copy and paste the tags to make it quick.
  •  
    Hey i'm the dev for this tool, Your right it does take a bit longer to add a website to the whitelist however it is a lot easier for the average user to use this tool then go and start manually editing the xml. 
    The next revision may allow for adding multiple sites at once and a backup tool as well.
     
  • this seems to be working fine for others, any idea why this download isn't working on my surface RT?
  • Are you getting any type of error message? if so could you inbox me a screen shot and what website are you trying to access
  • I'm getting error messages as well? ive tried deleting the program and installing a new one but it keeps happeneing....I didnt have an error the first time i used it but accidently closed the program halfway through the wait process...any ideas on how to have it work?
  • Hey yes I have fixed this issue in the next release for now please open the run command and type please delete everything in that folder and the program will work fine after that
  • I got this to work on my Windows 8 computer but it wont work on my surface tablet. It says the system cannot find the path specified help lol.
  • Hey i'm the dev for this tool, umm could you please inbox me a screen shot and could you also navigate to c:\users and tell me the folder name of your user account :) I will look into the issue or you.
  • Hi, how do I install it? When I run it, my command prompt will be filled with the path to the whitelist tool example : c:\ windows rt whitelist flash tool>REM "this is the 4 options the user will be able to select"
                     c:\ windows rt whitelist flash tool>echo 1. copy custom whitelist and disable list from being auto updated
                     1.copy custom whitelist and disable list from being auto updated....blablabla
    as you can see there are lots of repeats, but the screenshot up there its clean and not messed up. And i dont think it works for me though.
  • I would love to know how to put a custom background on the start screen like it shows in the article in the photo.  Any searches I have done only show how to install a program to do it in regular Windows 8 and not RT.  Any tips?
  • That's a stock one. :P
  • Yeah, just realized that. I was thinking the background was the brick reflection. Still, I want this ability before I get the Surface Pro....
  • Try Decor8 from stardock http://www.stardock.com/products/decor8/
  • Then just run Omnimo on the desktop and you're golden http://omnimo.info/
  • Ms uses whitelist because Flash is a home of security holes. Otherwise they had to beg adobe for patches every time when a security hole is deployed
  • Ah! Thanks for the tip guys. This works great. Just tried it on the ASUS Vivo RT and it works fine. Thanks!
  • i've had devices without flash support and i didn't have any problems... i think thats a question of personal interests... for me flash is not necessary... FOR ME!!
  • Um, where's the download located? When I go to http://www.filedropper.com/windowsrtwhitelistflashtool, I do not find your tool -- just a bunch of downloads for other things.
  • Click the "download this file button"
  • Thanks -- got it.
  • hey so im having issues with the whitelist. i dont now what ulr to type in to get the flashplayer. like i dont understand what website to input into the white list. i tried everything i could possibly think of and followed all the steps to do but i am pretty sure its what im typing into the white list. so what do i type to get flash player the lastest version??
     
  • I downloaded from the link and was greeted by a German prompt box that doesn't like to be copied to translator. Anyone else? Who knows why? Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Ihr wirklich, Oberfläche A. frustriert mich