There should definitely be an entry for the activeX flash player in the Control Panel > Programs and Features - this points to a corrupt installation and that is also what may be causing update installation.

Try this link to remove it without using Control Panel - http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html - Step one of that gives a link to download a flash player uninstaller and outlines the process.

Hopefully that will resolve it, I found this via a search http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=remove+activeX+flash+player, so there are possibly other options if this didn’t resolve it.