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Guide: Mozilla Firefox Unattended

SiMoNsAyS

By SiMoNsAyS
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SiMoNsAyS

SiMoNsAyS

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I agree IE sucks... the only reason i still use IE is bec. of yahoo Chess.

LoL :lol:

my reason is because windows update: i know there are 3rd party utilities but i think that a m$ programs can update better theirself. also removing IE sometimes is crappy, you know about OE and windows activation, so yes i can say that it still lies right here, resting, sleeping or what i like to think: on the morgue, waiting to sometime when it will be possible to remove/strip/delete/kill it COMPLETELY... i think i need some sleep, C U all guys :hello:

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my2001

my2001

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[...]

Features List

  • [...]
  • Added plugins: RealPlayer™, RealJukebox, QuickTime, Shockwave Flash, Microsoft Office 2003, Adobe Acrobat, Shockwave for Director, Java™ 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0, Microsoft® DRM and Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library.*
  • [...]

* The plugins won't work if you obviously don't have those programs installed. Quicktime and Realplayer free plugins (alternatives).

Please report Feedback

Why is it necessary to include those plugins? As you said they won't work without the appropiate applications installed on the system. So why install them generally then?

Moreover if you install an application which brings along browser plugins, it searches automatically for browsers available somewhere on the HDD and installs its plugins without any further ado. In this case you have only the desired and working plugins which should be the most preferable way. In almost any case there is just no need to include plugins in advance.

And thirdly Mozilla and Firefox respectively have a feature called "Plugin Scanning"! On startup these browsers search for common plugins (i.e. Adobe Acrobat, Java, QuickTime, Windows Media Player) on their own by reading the registry, that's why it is possible without any problems to install Firefox first and afterwards Acrobat Reader for instance. Although this seems to be the wrong order Firefox will find the Adobe Plugin anyway because of the Plugin Scanning. And this even saves you some bytes on your hard disk and keeps it tidy as well cuz the found plugins stay in their original host application directories and don't have to be copied to the browser's plugins directory. See also the path strings in your pluginreg.dat file, located in your Firefox profile folder. This also helps to keep you trouble-free when uninstalling some software which provided plugins. They'll be automatically removed whereas the manual copies of your installation will stay as garbage in the browser's plugin directory and certainly cause some malfunctions due to the lack of the missing host application.

For those who are interesed in more:

Maybe you wanna start at http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/notes.html#Scanning

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SiMoNsAyS

SiMoNsAyS

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@my2001 i'll try to reply all your doubts :)

1) because they are common programs that are installed often at least in my system.

2) i'm sure you haven't listen about the unattended codec pack that gives support for many media formats *but* it doesn't add support for browsers in order to play some media files. basically that pack extracts the codec files to system folders and import the necessary registry entries. with this installation, that pack and some reg settings you can find on this fourm you'll be able to play all of those files, do a search for it.

3) about plugin scanning yeah, i know about it, i've removed all the plugins and tested again: +/- 2 sec that for me don't make any difference and don't forget this setup is mainly for unattended installations which means sometimes don't install a program, even extracting it to the correct folder and import registry settings.

about disk space... :whistle: how many gb is your HD?? mine is 120*1024mb and i'm sure is not a problem to fill 2mb more. also there's not so much difference between the original installation and mine talking about size, the original one is smaller because it uses 7zip compression.

that's all (i think) :)

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totoymola

totoymola

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You can use IEXPRESS.EXE

Write a script and create an install package with IEXPRESS

Your script can start /wait the installation of the MSI and then continue with some commands.

I do it myself with a batch file and you can hide the cmd.exe windows.

It's an idea

Yeah, that is exactly what I am doing. But I always an error message, or sometimes the installer doesn't execute the script at all!! :realmad:

Anyways, I figured out a solution last night. Instead of using the script, I used an exe. And it works perfectly!! :thumbup

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SiMoNsAyS

SiMoNsAyS

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ok guys i've spent some (more than a few) minutes trying to get associations working correctly for .xpi and .jar files. it looks like now they're working so expect an update on some hours, now i need to get some sleep (5:18am here) :boring::zzz:

ps: problems come from extensions that are not updated to 1.0 but they work with the latest version :}

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CoffeeFiend

CoffeeFiend

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My friend totoyMola has made a superior version. he is waiting for someone to host his msi. I am talking about kick a** msi.

Well, the thing is, he doesn't mention what he's using or what will be included. And really, I don't think it really matters that much.

What I'd like:

1) Optimized binaries and some optimized settings

2) A mega easy way to update ff with next build, same goes for extensions

3) If possible, have the extensions install for all users

As for #1, it can't be that hard. #2 is my current major concern. #3 is less of a concern, but it would be nice.

Currently, SiMoNsAyS' installer works fine for me. Unless you can come up with a solution that adresses issue #2, I hardly see any reasons to switch to anything else (as I can take care of #1, and #3 is just "nice to have"). I just need something we can update as we go, instead of relying on someone else to come up with a new msi of theirs, or spend a couple days with every build to come up with a new installer (too time consuming).

I don't have much free time lately to look into it, but I'd like to come up with a overall solution to all this... I don't care if it's not really silent (progressbars showing) or isn't super compressed or things like that, it just has to work - and again be maintainable. I anybody else really has the time to maintain their packages like that too.

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SiMoNsAyS

SiMoNsAyS

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now reg is updated. firefox is associated with .xpi and .jar files so double click those files will install them :thumbup

REM Variables
FOR %%A IN ("%PROGRAMFILES%") DO SET SHORTPF=%%~sA
REM FIREFOX
REG ADD "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /V "Check_Associations" /D "no" /F
REG ADD "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /V "ShowedCheckBrowser" /D "yes" /F
REG ADD "HKU\.DEFAULT\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /V "Check_Associations" /D "no" /F
REG ADD "HKU\.DEFAULT\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /V "ShowedCheckBrowser" /D "yes" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.htm" /VE /D "FirefoxHTML" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.html" /VE /D "FirefoxHTML" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.xpi\DefaultIcon" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.xpi\shell\open\command" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -install-global-extension \"%%1\"" /F
REG DELETE "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jar" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jar\DefaultIcon" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jar\shell\open\command" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -install-global-extension \"%%1\"" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\FirefoxHTML\DefaultIcon" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\FirefoxHTML\shell\open\command" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%%1\"" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\ftp\DefaultIcon" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\ftp\shell\open\command" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%%1\"" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\gopher\DefaultIcon" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\gopher\shell\open\command" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%%1\"" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\http\DefaultIcon" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\http\shell\open\command" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%%1\"" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\https\DefaultIcon" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE,1" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\https\shell\open\command" /VE /D "%SHORTPF%\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%%1\"" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet" /VE /D "FIREFOX.EXE" /F
REG DELETE "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\http\shell\open\ddeexec" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\http\shell\open\ddeexec\Application" /VE /D "FIREFOX" /F
REG DELETE "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\https\shell\open\ddeexec" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\https\shell\open\ddeexec\Application" /VE /D "FIREFOX" /F
REG DELETE "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\ftp\shell\open\ddeexec" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\ftp\shell\open\ddeexec\Application" /VE /D "FIREFOX" /F
REG DELETE "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\gopher\shell\open\ddeexec" /F
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\gopher\shell\open\ddeexec\Application" /VE /D "FIREFOX" /F

[edit]i've been thinking... most of the people don't read the guide, i tried to explain everything about firefox and the installer that is the main problem so my idea is to convert the guide to html, then it will be replace by the default silent installer and a way to silent install extensions and themes.

html will contain instructions on how to develop a custom silent installer, please tell me what you think![/edit]

Edited by SiMoNsAyS
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CoffeeFiend

CoffeeFiend

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[most of the people don't read the guide]

Hmm, I thought this was the whole point of being here?

[i tried to explain everything about firefox and the installer that is the main problem]

Well, making a silent basic installer is very easy. (replace setup.exe, edit a ini file, repack/sfx it) I don't think it's an issue really. The only hard part is customizing it with your own stuff and user profiles. The way it installs and that the data is on the HD is rather confusing. Too many "chrome" folders, too much javascripts, xpi's, rdf's and everything... I'm not even sure what goes inside every directory (what they do) - especially about using GlobalProfile. The way you integrated your stuff is still half a mystery to me.

More and more I'm starting to think it would just be better off copying most of the files as is (this is what I used to do with 0.9.3 and it worked flawlessly), and creating a GlobalProfile with everything already in it. But you seem concerned that it will only work on english systems - which is not a concern for me. (importing the registry part is easy - again, I use a .reg file instead of a cmd with tons of REG ADD - english systems only!) That way I could easily update/maintain it, use optimized builds, tewaks, and anybody could use their profiles as desired. So it looks like we're going to use different ways to install. [edit] after reading into it, there is no such thing as GlobalProfile, it's just some folder someone picked and uses to store a default profile along with yet another vbscript to fix it after installing, like in the first post of this thread... Oh well. Looks like we got work to do.

As for your jar file association, it will probably break some apps (like ProjectX), and I don't have much of a use for it, but it should not be a major issue for most ppl. xpi should be fine.

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