I attempted to install Flash Player 32.0.2.255 and the first attempt bombed right at the beginning. Looking at the Event Viewer in MMC I found the problem was that Flash wanted VC version 9 (VC 2008) installed so I downloaded a copy and installed it. Retried the Flash install and everything went fine until the very end. There was a problem with the control panel applet. So according to the last installer message Flash was not installed. Trusting my eyes rather than a message I did a search in the registry for the word "flash". The first key the search encountered I was unable to delete. It is locked in some fashion that even as the Administrator with full permissions (I checked that by right clicking on the registry key and selecting permissions) it will not let it be deleted. What is going on here? Anybody know? I did make a backup before the install so I can put things back right but I'm curious since I've never run into this situation before.
PS The key is in classes root\CLSID and classes root\interface