On going into my control panel and clicking onto program and features I find I have:
Adobe Flash Player ActiveX
RICOH R5C83x/84x Flash Media Controller Driver ( DO I NEED BOTH OF THESE? )

I never download music from the Internet but I have downloaded a little from CD
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Also I have Adobe Shockwave Player11 and Adobe reader 8.1.2.
I'm still not sure why I need these ?
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I'm editing this posting again to include these which are also listed in programm and features:
Java (TM) 6 update 2
" " " 6 update 3
" " " 6 update 5
(((and now))) I'm getting another pop-up saying Java (TM) SE Runtime Environment 6 update 5 is ready to be downloaded ??????????????

Thank you whs
Now you have pointed out the most important ones I will be able to organise myself a bit better

Grandma Sue, jd2066 and I agree that the Ricoh Flash controller is probably for a flash card reader or slot. That is for a flash memory card, a storage device. The Adobe Flash Player is software for web pages to add fancy graphics and sound. Adobe Flash is software that has nothing to do with flash memory storage. I suppose they chose the name because it adds "flash" to web pages, not because they wanted to confuse you. :-)

Also, as whs said, you probably don't need Shockwave, another bit of software that is rarely used anymore. If you should need it for some rare web page, you can easily install it again. I agree that you should keep Java, but only the latest version. Unfortunately, Java does not uninstall older versions which just sit around cluttering up your system and have the potential to cause problems. First, uninstall all the Javas that you have from newest to oldest. Then install the latest version, currently version 6 update 7, from:
http://www.java.com