After much trial and error, and nunerous system restores I have finally
cracked it. (I think!!)
They only work with IE32 not IE64

First, uninstall all old versions (using Adobe web uninstaller for
preference)

Go to the Adobe web player test page.
Shockwave will offer to install first. Activate activeX control and wait a
short while
for the installer to kick in.
Go through the motions of installation.
You will get a message saying that there is a problem with the side by side
configuration
and that it can't find a dll.
(If you get asked if the program installed correctly say yes)
Close browser and go to Windows\sysWOW64
copy folder Macromed into system32 folder (COPY don't cut)
Go back to web player test page and install Shockwave again
This time it will work.

Similar procedure for Flash 9
Install
copy macromed into system32
reinstall.

NOTE
You will get LOTS of dialogue boxes saying that Flash and Shockwave want to
open outside
of protected mode. For installation purposes I decide to let them do this
in case it affected
installation. And I do mean lots.

However, once happy the installations are OK they can be dismissed by
disallowing and don't
then keep popping up.
At the moment I consider it better to have the minor nuisance of a flash
enabled web page ask me
rather than Allow and tick the don't ask me again checkbox.

A couple of questions for those who might have more experience of these sort
of things.

What exactly do these players want to do outside protected mode?
If the "don't ask me again" box is ticked, how do you get it back to undo
it?
I appreciate that protected mode is another security layer that is
desirable, but is there
any significant risk in allowing these players to operate outside?

Phypps