How would you go about upgrading old Shockwave Flash files to a newer version?
In my case, I have files from Shockwave Flash 5 and see that Adobe is currently on version 12. I want to be sure to upgrade these, so that our users don't have compatibility problems viewing them on our site in the future (i.e. if Adobe stops supporting version 5).
You can't do it from the swf file alone (to the best of my knowledge), but if you have the original fla file it was compiled from you can recompile it with a newer version of the Flash compiler. Some changes may need to be made to the code within the file to account for version differences.
If your concern is for compatibility, then you would need to change them to HTML5 - many browsers (particularly mobile) just won't execute flash files any more.
If you have the .fla file, then you could try opening it in a newer version of Flash and seeing whether it gives you option to export it. I wouldn't guarantee that it will - Flash 5 is 14 years old now.
If it is just animation (as opposed to interactive), then there are programmes to convert .swf to .mp4, which you could then play in a HTML5 video tag. Swf to Gif converters are also available.
Might also be worth trying this - https://www.google.com/doubleclick/studio/swiffy/
