For this book, you can use Macromedia Flash MX 2004, Regular or Professional version. You can even use an earlier version of Flash for many of the projects in this book.
System requirements for Flash MX 2004 are as follows:
Windows
Macintosh
600 MHz Intel Pentium III processor or equivalent
Windows 98 SE (4.10.2222 A), Windows 2000, or Windows XP
128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended)
347 MB available disk space
500 MHz PowerPC G3 processor
Mac OS X 10.2.8 and later, 10.3.4
128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended)
280 MB available disk space
The Flash MX 2004 7.2 updater was released in mid-2004. This important updater release resolves many of the performance issues and bugs that existed in the initial Flash release (September 2003). It's strongly recommended that you download and install this updater. Not only will you notice many improvements in the software, you will be able to work with Flash much more efficiently. The program is much more stable and less prone to crashing. Additionally, the updater addresses and fixes many bugs in ActionScript, components, the authoring environment (performance), and documentation. Although you don't need the updater specifically for this book, it will certainly affect your work with Flash outside of these tutorials.
Installing the Flash MX 2004 7.2 Updater is strongly recommended. Download it for free at [www.macromedia.com/software/flash/special/7_2updater].
Read the release notes here: [http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flash/mx2004/releasenote116].