What is Shockwave Flash?

In answer to your questions, firstly it is not part of your operating platform.
Flash files may appear in a web page for viewing in a web browser. Flash files occure most often as animations, advertisements or design elements on web pages.

Have a search for it on the internet under macromedia and download.

TigeetheCat,

I fear my descriptions of how to disable your CanoScan OS 9 software from launching, to allow the OS X drivers to take over, must have been less clear to others than they were to me. You shouldn't have OS 9 / Classic running, period, and Adobe Reader, Shockwave, etc. sould all be in native OS X software versions that don't require the CarbonLib extension (that OS 9 extension allows programs written to a set of guidelines named 'Carbon' to run in either OS 9 or OS X; OS X native programs don't need CarbonLib).

Internet plug-ins for OS X applications such as Safari or Firefox reside in the Library/ Internet Plug-Ins folder (at the root level of the hard drive to be accessible to all users on the Mac or in an individual's ~/Users/ [username]/ Library/ Internet Plug-Ins folder if unique to a particular user --- the root level Library/ Internet Plug-Ins is preferrable).

Download the OS X versions of Macromedia Shockwave Player and Macromedia Flash Player to get the browser plug-ins back.

Back on your problems with OS 9: check the System Folder> Extensions folder and verify that CarbonLib file is there, version 1.6.1, 3.9MB in size.

Have you tried creating the new user account and checking if that works as expected, without the CanoScan OS 9 driver-related problems in you primary user account? What happened when you tried starting in Safe Mode?

BTW, you may want to check local or online bookstores for a copy of the Panther OS X 10.3 version of David Pogue's OS X: The Missing Manual, which has been highly recommended by expert and novice users alike.

Your problems are hardly trivial, and your posts are only annoying in that your problems are defying an easy solution. I certainly wouldn't expect the presense or absense of CarbonLib to affect downloading or installing OS X native software (although Adobe software can be a whole 'nother can of worms).

You can use the Finder's Find command to look for CarbonLib: search in specific places, selecting the entire hard drive, using file name contains CarbonLib as the primary search criteria, and adding the criteria visibility = all.

If bits and pieces of the Os 9 System Folder have been moved or lost, through, you may be better off just replacing the System Folder entirely. Print out OS X: How to Perform Mac OS 9 Clean Install for a reference. After doing that, do not reinstall the OS 9 CanoScan drivers but rather make sure to use the OS X version from Canon's website.

Did you try the bit about creating a test user account to see if it behaves the same way when you try to say install Shockwave?

Good luck...

In OS X 10.4, in System preferences> Accounts, after clicking the lock icon to unlock the preferences and entering one's administrative pasword, there's a Login Options button which leads to a checkbox for 'automatically log in as' with a pulldown box for available accounts. Unchecking that option will bring up the login dialog on startup. You can also check the box to allow fast user switching, log on normally / automatically as yourself on startup, and use fast user switching through the icon in the top right of the menu bar to switch to and from the test account.

(The details in 10.3 are similar if slightly different; refer to Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther): Welcome (Manual).)

Wait --- that link is to a PDF file, and one of your problems is getting Adobe Reader to run. Which makes offering that link akin to (true story, confirmed by two different friends kids going to that schoo) what a local college did a few years back after rewiring dorm rooms to Ethernet from dial-up phone modems: they told the incoming students that the instructions on how to get online were available at a certain link. Try these links instead:
Mac OS X 10.3 Help: Changing the way users log in
Mac OS X 10.3 Help: Requiring users to log in to the computer

That you're getting the same problem with a freshly created user account tells you that the problem is at the system level and not with the user account's preferences.

I'd try the link on doing a clean install of OS 9 next.

Depending on just how mungled the System's settings and files have gotten between the OS 9 CanoScan install and your efforts to undo that, you may want to resort after that to doing an Archive and Install, followed by re-applying any necessary OS and security updates to get back to OS X 10.3.9 from whatever version is on your OS X Install disk (if the disk already has 10.3.9 things will be that much simpler).

Don't forget to run Disk Utility/ Repair Permissions on the hard drive after the computer restarts following any OS X and/or security software update.

Following that, you should be able to do the Shockwave et al. installs. Be sure to use the OS X version of the CanoScan drivers!

And good luck!