Solid Edge Older versions of Solid Edge suddenly starting to crash or hang as of mid-January, 2021

Older versions of Solid Edge e.g. ST7, ST8, ST9, etc. are as of mid-January, 2021 now repeatedly crashing or locking up:

Why, and how to prevent this?

Solution

With older versions of Solid Edge we provided for animated tooltips in the toolbars that rely on Adobe Flash.
 
As of December, 31, 2020, Adobe has formally retired Flash.

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html 
 
As of January 12, 2021, Microsoft has started disabling/blocking the Flash application through the Windows 10 operating system:

https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2020/09/04/update-adobe-flash-end-support/
 
This crashing, hanging, and lock up is occurring because of the user having animated tooltips enabled in Solid Edge and the Microsoft operating system is now blocking Flash.
 
Disabling animated tooltips should prevent Solid Edge from  crashing, hanging, or locking up.

At a minimum, disable "Show video clips" and test:

However, depending on the software versions in use it may also be necessary to disable "Show enhanced tooltips" as well:

Hardware/Software Configuration

Platform: INTL64
OS: windows
OS Version: 1064
Product: SOLID_EDGE
Application: HELP
Version: V107.0
Function: ENH_TOOLTIPS

Ref: 002-8523942