Adobe actually told some users about Windows 8's Flash situation two weeks ago.

On an , a company representative announced on Aug. 23 that there would be no Flash update for Windows 8 and IE10 until late October. "Since Windows 8 has not yet been released for general availability, the update channel is not active," said Chris Campbell, identified as an Adobe employee. "Once this goes live, you'll start getting updates to Flash Player."

It was unclear what Campbell meant by "the update channel is not active," as Microsoft has patched Windows 8, most recently in July when it to both Windows 8's Consumer Preview and Release Preview through Windows Update.

Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 desktop relies on a baked-in version of Flash that hasn't been updated to account for some critical bugs, including one hackers have been exploiting for weeks.

Microsoft support engineers have known of the Flash problem on Windows 8 since at least .