uninstalled IE7, then uninstall_flash_player.exe successfully completed.
reinstalled flash9 from web site, and functional thus far.

the uninstaller may have failed due to incompatibility with IE7; my previous
successful uninstalls/reinstalls occurred after experiencing problems with
McAfee IS9, prior to upgrading to IE7. don't believe that I had tried to
uninstall/reinstall after upgrading to IE7 until today, as flash functioned
normally

Flash 9 became nonfunctional today (XP Pro SP2 with all updates, IE7)

uninstall_flash_player.exe from the Adobe web site hangs at 93% completion, as
reported elsewhere in this forum.

attempted reinstall over presumably corrupted installation from the web site
after exiting, with successful install reported, but still unable to open any
flash content.

tried to uninstall manually, by using regsrvr32 flash.ocx and flash9.ocx with
/u option, each successful, but unable to successfully delete flash9.OCX, just
flash.ocx that was presumably from version 8, even after rebooting.

Have been using McAfee IS9 without privacy components due to incompatibilities
with some other software, but initial failures of flash had been solved by
successfully using above uninstall executable and reinstalling. Flash had been
functional until now.

Even tried uninstalling McAfee and temporarily using AVG Free AV with the
Windows firewall, and repeating steps above, also without success.