Tags around (shudder) Flash object to check player version?

[Marty Kent]

I'm working with some people who have a site that uses Flash very
substantially. It's pathetic, but I've been unable to convince them
to just redo the whole thing yet, so I'm trying to at least make it
"work" for people who have Flash players.

The problem (i.e. the one I'm requesting advice about here) is that
the thing is in Flash 6, and it doesn't work for people with earlier
versions of the Flash player. There's a piece of HTML which I believe
is supposed to check the version of the browser's installed Flash
player, and, if this version is older than 6, put up an alert and
maybe offer a button to take the user to a site where they can
download the current version of the player. But this isn't working.

The code I think is supposed to do all this is:

<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
CODEBASE="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflas
h.cab#version=6,0,0,0" WIDTH="600" HEIGHT="450" ID="splashtest"
ALIGN="">
<PARAM NAME="movie" VALUE="splashtest.swf">
<PARAM NAME="loop" VALUE="false">
<PARAM NAME="quality" VALUE="autohigh">
<PARAM NAME="scale" VALUE="noborder">
<PARAM NAME="bgcolor" VALUE="#FFFFFF">
<EMBED SRC="splashtest.swf" LOOP="false" QUALITY="autohigh"
SCALE="noborder" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" WIDTH="600" HEIGHT="450"
NAME="splashtest" ALIGN="" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>


If there's anyone here who knows about these things, can you please
give me a clue about this? Is this code actually supposed to do what
I think, and there's some typo or other error in it? (I notice as I
paste it into this message window, the URL underlining in the CODEBASE
attribute stops after the 6 and doesn't include the commas and 0s...)

Or am I way off base in thinking this is supposed to do a version check?

I'm too embarrassed for my friends to publish the URL of the site
that uses this code.

Thanks much for any help.

 

[Whitecrest]

I'm working with some people who have a site that uses Flash very
substantially. It's pathetic, but I've been unable to convince them
to just redo the whole thing yet, so I'm trying to at least make it
"work" for people who have Flash players.

If you had the slightest clue about flash you would know the answer, and
since you hate it so much, it is probably better that I don't tell you
the answer. Look at it this way, this gives you more ammo to convince
your friends to change their evil ways....