Create a silent install of Mozilla ThunderBird
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1) Have a copy of Mozilla Firefox
2) Run the THunderBird setup program, and, while it is still on
the first screen, go to your %USERPROFILE%\7z*.* folder (EG:
where the mozilla setup extracts its files to before
installation), and copy all of the files in that directory
to a temporary directory. I will use TB_TMP for this howto.
3) Do the same with firefox that you did with ThunderBird. I used
FF_TMP for the temp folder for FireFox.
4) Make 2 more temp folders, FF_XPCOM and TB_XPCOM.
5) Extract the XPCOM.XPI file in the FF_TMP directory to
the FF_XPCOM directory. Extract the XPCOM.XPI file in the
TB_TMP directory to the TB_XPCOM directory. (These files
can be extracted using any standard unzip program)
6) Copy the install.js file from the FF_XPCOM to the TB_XPCOM folder.
7) Copy NSPR*.dll, plc*.dll, and plds*.dll from the FF_XPCOM folder
to the TB_XPCOM folder.
8) Zip the TB_XPCOM folder (Make sure your program recreates the
internal directory structure) to TB_XPCOM.ZIP
9) Backup your original XPCOM.XPI located in the TB_TMP folder.
10) Copy TB_XPCOM.ZIP to the TB_TMP folder and rename it XPCOM.XPI
11) Backup the setup.exe file in the TB_TMP folder
12) Download a mozilla installation (full install). I used this one:

mozilla-win32-1.7.1-installer.exe

Get it at ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases

(You can also use the setup.exe from your unattended FireFox installation
if you've done one using the mozilla setup method, that's what I did. )

13) Using the same techniques we used in steps 1 and 2, run the
Mozilla installation and when the first screen comes up, go
to your %USERPROFILE%\7z*.* folder and get the setup.exe...
I believe it's called Mozilla-Install.exe or something of
the sort. (Sorry, I've already deleted the original Moz. installer
and don't want to download it again). Anyhow, copy the setup
executable (it's about 245k) to your TB_TMP folder.
14) Rename the moz. install file (the one we just retrieved from the
%UESRPROFILE%\7z*.* folder) to setup.exe
15) Make a backup of the config.ini file that is now in TB_TMP.
16) Open the config.ini in TB_TMP and change the line that says
Run Mode=Normal to Run Mode=Silent (It's the 1st non-commented
line in the file) and save it.
17) Run this command: <path to setup>\Setup.exe -ma -ira to have
TB install silently.

18) For those of you that really want to save some space, extract
each of the XPI files to it's own directory and then recompress
them using your programs highest level of compression. I did
it with IZArc and the total size of the install directory
for TB dropped from 22mb to 12mb. And hey, when you're dealing
with 700mb (of which XP Pro SP2 takes about 590), 10 megs can
be a life saver.

The problem everyone keeps referring to where, when using the -ma -ira switch
with a clean TB install, a freeze occurs at the install directory page
because of some error/change in the xpcom component. This is a work-around for
that error. Though three of the files are older, I'm assuming (since they were from
netscape) that they have no major impact on TB's workings. And, so far, I have had
no problems running it for 3 weeks. So, if anyone has a problem with TB after it's
installed this way, let me know about!

Have fun, and hope this helped

--RJ

Oh, to make one point clear, the in the previous post, the TB_TMP folder
will hold the ThunderBird installation when the steps above are completed.
So, the phrase <Path to setup>\setup.exe -ma -ira is referring to, in
my case, C:\TB_TMP\SETUP.EXE -ma -ira where
C:\TB_TMP = <PATH TO SETUP>

Seems to be working just fine, I'll know for sure when I make my next disk. Thanks for the information though.

Wouldnt using vmware in combination with wininstall be faster? And it would also allow you to automatically include user profiles and settings aswell...

Mosselman... have you made a STEP by STEP guide to your idea.

rjs1980... do you have this already made up? as I honostly couldn't be bothered

There doesn't seem to be 'simple' ways of installing fox and bird... While they are great programs they are s***s to unattend.

The way I do it (but takes up excess space on the CD, unless SFX archived) is to get the zip versions of Firefox and Thunderbird:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/fir...win32-0.9.3.zip
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thu...0.7.3-win32.zip

and extract them each to \$OEM$\$Progs\Mozilla Firefox and \$OEM$\$Progs\Mozilla Thunderbird and that's pretty much it, no switches.

Finish it off by removing the read-only attributes in one of your batch files:
attrib -R "%ProgramFiles%\Mozilla Firefox\*.*" /S /D
attrib -R "%ProgramFiles%\Mozilla Thunderbird\*.*" /S /D

I tested Mozilla_Firefox_1.0PR.exe

1. i created a self-extracting rar from my installed version of Firefox
2. In SFX option
3. RunOnceEx.cmd


I will add some extensions and plugins