IE8 Flash issue - flash not loading

Hey yall,


I've posted this before, but due to several issues I've not gotten but one response.

Here is the situation:
At our Real Estate office I worked on an Agents PC. It is a Toshiba Qosmio with Vista 32 bit.
I uninstalled Norton 360 (the trial version) and we put ThreatFire on there.
He said it ran faster but Flash stopped working. It simply does not load...no errors,
no "Please Install Flash" messages or anything. Just empty blank spaces.
I uninstalled ThreatFire and put AVG on the PC.
Flash works fine with FireFox, Opera, Safari, but NOT with IE8.
Unfortunately, some of sites the agents use require only IE8.
So YouTube, Miniclip, HotMail login, ZipForms, WindowsUpdate site, etc do not work.
When you click a link to download (possibly using ActiveX?) Flash player, the
green bar moves like it's loading, then fills as if loaded, but then nothing happens.
Same with loading hotmail..it acts like it will load, but then loads a blank white page.
 also get Java errors telling me to enable Java, but under the IE8 control panel it
says that Java is already enabled. Furthermore I cannot seem to download the latest Java either.
Here are the steps I have taken in my attempts to fix the issue:

-Manage Addons...looked for trouble-makers, nothing.
-Disabled all Addons, loaded IE8 addon-free
-Uninstalled flash from Programs/Features
-Installed Flash from 3rd party website (see above for why not from Flash.com)
-Installed Flash in Safari, Opera, and FireFox.  Not working in IE8.
-Reset/Restored all settings in IE8
-uninstalled flash using the special uninstaller from Adobe
-reinstalled flash
-uninstalled java
-reinstalled java
-ran all windows updates, and MS updates
-disabled AVG and tested flash
-loaded Shockwave, the latest version
-"Programs and Features" does not show Flash installed.
-Have run through the fixes that folks recommended from the "C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash"
folder (reinstalls, etc)
-Uninstalled IE8, ran older IE, no luck
-Installed IE8 again, nothing
-Created a new user account, admin level
-Turned off all safe surfing filters, all settings to lowest or off
-Performed the Registry tweaks as described on Adobe.com's forum (http://forums.adobe.com/message/2141077)

One thing I wonder about:
how would I test to see if ActiveX is working as well?
well I tested it here: http://www.pcpitstop.com/testax.asp
and I get a blank spot instead of the date/time. They say that it means that it's not scripting properly..
looking into that currently.

Since it's been two weeks, and the above is condensed from about 7 or 8 different
posts, I'mma try to make this worth a lot of points. Additionally, I will give you credit
for the other open question...worth 500 pts. Yes, I'm that frustrated and desperate. :P

Attached are screenshots of the issue.

My last option is to nuke the machine..and he may want to retro-fit with XP which
may be a drivers nightmare.