Guide: Mozilla Firefox Unattended

[totoymola]

Ok, here is my version. You can download it HERE.

Features:

It is just a basic Firefox msi with:

- Flash Player plug-in

- No DOM inspector

- No Quality Feed Back Agent

- Additional themes and extensions (You can choose to install it or not, but they are installed by default)

If you choose to install the additional themes and extensions, you will have:

- Google as default homepage

- Noia (Extreme) as default theme

- Additional themes and extensions (of course)

Here is the list of the themes included:

- Noia 2.0 (eXtreme)

- Noia 2.0 (lite)

- SphereGnomeBig

- ScribbliesKids

- Curacao

- Pinball

- 708990

- Littlefox

- Walnut

- Archaic

- ScribbliesBrite

- Nautical Blue

- Pheonity

- Doodle Plastik

- Nautical

And these are the extensions included:

- Flashgot

- Adblock

- Image Zoom

- BBCode

- QuickTabPrefToggle

- Mouse Gestures

- Context Search

- GooglePreview

- Resize Search Box

- Translate

- Gmail Notifier

- LinkVisitor

- FireFTP

- Advanced Highlighter Button

Note: If you choose not to install the themes and extensions, you will have a basic installation of Firefox with Flashplayer plug-in only.

If you encounter any problems, or if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

A BIG thank you goes to Astalavista for testing my msi's.

[toe_cutter]

@totoymola

so is there any way to add your own extensions and themes? like make the msi go through the folder "ff_extsns" and install those that are there

[totoymola]

so is there any way to add your own extensions and themes? like make the msi go through the folder "ff_extsns" and install those that are there

As of now, I didn't include options on the installer to customize the installation more, because I don't know how to do it. Sorry.. But I was thinking of that too (plus additional languages), and I will try to add that if I can.

[CoffeeFiend]

No offense, but it's not eaxctly what I'd call kick a** - I still much prefer SiMoNsAyS' installer.

To me, it's just another silent installer, but without most the plugins I use, a bunch I don't want (and while it's easy to automate adding plugins, you can't exactly automate removing them) and unwanted skins. It doesn't (seem to anyways) adress any of the 3 points I brought up either (mind you those points may not be much of a concern for you). Or perhaps there's a way to specify don't install the extra stuff - making it a bare installer with no advantages over any other installer...

Don't take this wrong, it's not meant as an insult by any means. I'm sure it answers your needs, but it may be a better installer for you (and Astalavista?) than for other people (which is why I keep bringing up the customizability issue)... And thanks for sharing your work regardless.

[edit] As for installing misc extensions post-install, I just gave it a try with v1.0 final again.

I used this small test.cmd:

@echo off
for %%e in ("c:\temp\extensions\*.xpi") do "c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -install-global-extension "%%e"

(Some ppl mentionned needing a delay, but this way always worked 100% for me...)

With all the extensions (*.xpi) inside C:\temp\extensions; ran the .cmd manually, waited about a minute (for like 30 some extensions), reopened firefox - everything installed perfectly. So there's hardly a need to include a bunch of them (other than those plugins SiMoNsAyS already has included in his installer). You could also have the xpi's and cmd inside a sfx to save a couple hundred kb I would suspect installing skins would works similarly too. (if you want, you could even peek inside the extension installers for user profile for plugin configs for things like WeatherFox or FoxyTunes - might have a look later)

As for the search plugins, it's ridiculously easy to add/remove, they're kept in %ProgramFiles%\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins. del /q %ProgramFiles%\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins\*.* should get rid of all the ones currently installed and as for adding new ones go, you could (x)copy new ones over or have a sfx extract directly there... Nothing hard.

Now if I could have an installer like SiMoNsAyS but using the optimized binaries I'd be all set (can't be too hard to do)

[jdoe]

...which is not a concern for me. (importing the registry part is very easy - again, I use a .reg file instead of a cmd with tons of REG ADD - english systems only!)

Install a pre-configured version of Firefox is a challenge and even if we can do it with this guide (and tools) there's more work to do to make these tools more reliable and professional (I'm working on it).

@crahak

For your needs I'm sure you have a good setup for Firefox but using a .reg file is not drive independent if there's path in it and I know building an unattended installation of Firefox is easy but in this thread it's not the point.

The challenge is to build a pre-configured version of Firefox you can install on every language of Windows, no matter drive it is, that will work for all users.

@SyMoNsAyS

Good idea for the .xpi registry entries

I have updated the "set firefox as default" batch

FOR %%A IN ("%PROGRAMFILES%") DO SET SHORTPF=%%~sA

REG.EXE ADD "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /v "Check_Associations" /d "no" /f
REG.EXE ADD "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /v "ShowedCheckBrowser" /d "yes" /f
REG.EXE ADD "HKU\.DEFAULT\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /v "Check_Associations" /d "no" /f
REG.EXE ADD "HKU\.DEFAULT\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /v "ShowedCheckBrowser" /d "yes" /f

REG.EXE ADD "HKCU\Software\Clients\StartMenuInternet" /ve /d "FIREFOX.EXE" /f
REG.EXE ADD "HKU\.DEFAULT\Software\Clients\StartMenuInternet" /ve /d "FIREFOX.EXE" /f

REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet" /ve /d "FIREFOX.EXE" /f

REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.htm" /ve /d "FirefoxHTML" /f
REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.html" /ve /d "FirefoxHTML" /f

REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\ftp\DefaultIcon" /ve /d "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /f
REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\ftp\shell\open\command" /ve /d "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%%1\"" /f
REG.EXE DELETE "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\ftp\shell\open\ddeexec" /f

REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\gopher\DefaultIcon" /ve /d "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /f
REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\gopher\shell\open\command" /ve /d "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%%1\"" /f
REG.EXE DELETE "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\gopher\shell\open\ddeexec" /f

REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\http\DefaultIcon" /ve /d "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /f
REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\http\shell\open\command" /ve /d "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%%1\"" /f
REG.EXE DELETE "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\http\shell\open\ddeexec" /f

REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\https\DefaultIcon" /ve /d "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /f
REG.EXE ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\https\shell\open\command" /ve /d "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%%1\"" /f
REG.EXE DELETE "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\https\shell\open\ddeexec" /f

EXIT

[Astalavista]

For me i love Totoymola's msi work. It works great to each his own crahak.

totoymola spent a great deal of time working on the msi. GREAT JOB.

as for what you like ... u can build your own exe or msi and post it here if u like.

as soon as totoymola comes out with a instructions i will also build my own msi using installshield.

[CoffeeFiend]

@jdoe

I know it's not drive independant too. I understand not everybody has the same needs. I just mentionned it was easier in most cases (unless you don't have an english system or change the path - which will never happen around here, neither home, work, friends, ... It's always an option) Perhaps making a all languages/paths build is your goal, but it clearly isn't mine. I think it's still relevant. Using either one is no big deal, not much of a change to do (run regedit /s file.reg OR whatever.cmd)... or you can edit the .reg file and "replace all" by whatever program files happens to be in your own language or path you use if you wanted too.

@Astalavista yep, that's my point. It may work for you, but it may not work so well for others - exactly my point. You either use it as is or not... Or you can use a basic installer like SiMoNsAyS' (or your own) which is easy to update (take new vers, change a couple lines in ini and use other setup.exe). Updating extensions is child's play if you use a batch post install- just replace the xpi files for whichever ones you want. As for the search plugins, I don't think you could ask for anything simpler either. Everybody is different and everybody will want (or *NOT* want) different extensions. I don't see much of a point of posting my own installer with my own preferences, bookmarks, extensions, skins, search plugins and such. Posting mine? SiMoNsAyS' installer is right here. After that, you can use a simple batch (which I did post) to install extensions and just extract the search plugins... Having it all in a msi file will not make it easier, it will mostly make it hard to update/customize, unless you release not the msi itself but the not-built-yet project, along with the scripts and everything fully documented (and even then it's a lot more work and reading to do). Ppl using msi's have to rebuild it every time (and if it wasn't done by you - you're at the mercy of whoever did it to come up with an updated one) and it's quite time consuming. Basic installer + stuff added after from a extensions dir and such can't be beat when it comes to maintainability/customizability. Anyone can take their own stuff and dump it in there, change to new vers, delete some or what not. Same goes for skins or search plugins. And if the main installer is updated, there's only that to change and it doesn't affect the extras. Like you said, to each their own.

[totoymola]

No offense, but it's not eaxctly what I'd call kick a** - I still much prefer SiMoNsAyS' installer.

To me, it's just another silent installer, but without most the plugins I use, a bunch I don't want (and while it's easy to automate adding plugins, you can't exactly automate removing them) and unwanted skins. It doesn't (seem to anyways) adress any of the 3 points I brought up either (mind you those points may not be much of a concern for you). (Or perhaps there's a way to specify don't install the extra stuff - making it a bare installer with no advantages over any other installer)

Don't take this wrong, it's not meant as an insult by any means. I'm sure it answers your needs, but it may be a better installer for you than for other people (which is why I keep bringing up the customizability issue)... And thanks for sharing regardless.

Yes. You are correct. This msi is not customizable like what you expected. I built this for my personal use, for those who are lazy building their own, and for those who use (or like) the themes and extensions included. Every person has different needs and wants, so I can't build an msi that will suite the needs of everyone. But on my next project, I will try to make a "customizable" installer, with different languages.

@Astalavista

Thanks for your comment. I'm glad you like it.

[Astalavista]

the key here is choice.... simon doesn't seem to mind if there are alternatives to his method.

in regards to how much time it takes to edit and modify and update, that is pretty relative.

plus i am forced to learn how to use InstallShield which is something i hv put off for a long time.

here is a screenshot of totoymola's Firefox. this is default

notice there is gmail, and google has moved,

[SiMoNsAyS]

ok guys this is how it is going to go:

i'll edit first post, all the text will go on a html attached to first post; inside the zip file with the tutorial and tools developed by jdoe. i'll also add a "how to build a custom -silent- installation" on the attached file. then i'll explain how to install extensions silently from the command line so now you won't get any problem (the main idea of this was deployed by crahak).

if you want to create a silent installation do it, i'll add a link in the tut, this is for everyone and for every lang, the only thing important is to host the file somewhere.

you can suggest, correct or reply what you think, but just be concrete (i'm talking about 'why don't you add something to speed up my inet'?).

installers and people who worked on this will be credited on first post. that's all

ps: jdoe i'll update the code asap

[FSB-SPY]

Did a VMware install and I get a:

<window id="main-window"

^

error when I try to launch FireFox shortcut. It went on my desktop, etc, I had no errors on the RunOnceEx portion of the install. Just won't execute.

I only have FIREFOX.EXE and PROFILE.EXE in my X:\SOFTWARE\ (where X = CD-rom) folder -- I did not download any extentions or plugins so I don't have any other silent install packages on my CD.

Any ideas guys?

[SiMoNsAyS]

@FSB-SPY, the installer was built by yourself or you downloaded mine? things you can try:

uninstall and delete profile, then reinstall and re-export profile.

don't export profile folder, just install firefox.

try to use other installer like the .msi one or mine.

[FSB-SPY]

I'm following your guide on how to do it; from page one, first post. Did you have an MSI package available? I want someone to make a simple re-pack of the 1.0 install (read: no extentions, etc) that could be silently installed via cmdlines or runonceex. I didn't see any packages that currently only had the FireFox browser (minus any extentions and themes), so my only option was to start from scratch and make my own silent install using your guide.

But it has not yet worked out for me..

[SiMoNsAyS]

this is mine and here is the msi installer.

both are bunch of features, select what matchs your needs (but let me recommend mine )

[totoymola]

both are bunch of features, select what matchs your needs (but let me recommend mine )

Hahaha!!