Firefox 13 question

Would you like to see silent automatic updates when it is introduced with FF 13 either

Enabled
9
56%
Disabled
7
44%
 
Total votes: 16

two00lbwaster
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Firefox 13 question

Post by two00lbwaster » Sun Apr 08, 2012 6:38 am

I know that we're not there yet, however, I'd like to know if you are going to be enabling the silent automatic background updates in the default MSI build.

I'm guessing not as some IT staff like total control of deployed software, however, if it is not going to be on by default, how easy is it going to be to change that option?

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DraconPern
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by DraconPern » Mon Apr 09, 2012 5:47 am

No, it'll be disabled, just like how updates are disabled right now.
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BrandonMills
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by BrandonMills » Wed Apr 18, 2012 12:31 pm

I'd say give us the option to enable or disable it. For non-mission critical systems, it's fine that everyone updates. Windows does it, Office does it, and soon everything else under the sun will do it. I hope this silent auto-updating becomes a trend and all other manufacturers follow suite. That means you, Adobe and Oracle.

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DraconPern
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by DraconPern » Wed Apr 18, 2012 12:57 pm

I'll have to see how it's implemented, but for most deployments of the MSI, users can't run the update anyways as it needs admin priv. Now, New version of Adobe Flash does do silent update, but it still needs admin priv. Window/Office uses a completely different update mechanism. Those updates are done through a windows service which doesn't require the user to actually need admin priv.
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naberios
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by naberios » Thu Apr 19, 2012 8:38 am

The new Adobe Flash update method does not require admin to update once the new service is installed. It registers a service that checks for and applies updates as the SYSTEM account. I would assume this is the same process Firefox will utilize to provide silent background updates.

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DraconPern
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by DraconPern » Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:37 am

Ah, naberios, you are absolutely right!
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Rick-PS
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by Rick-PS » Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:03 am

I'd be interested in whether this is possible as selectable option. And yes updates will be installed under a system account like Adobe does for Flash Player.

roach
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by roach » Mon May 14, 2012 1:26 am

Hello FrontMotion Team

First: Thanks for your work on the Firefox MSI's

I would also be happy to see silent updates enabled or at least an option to enable it. Because its not a critical application for us, it could update itself without testing it before.
I'm looking forward to a msi release with silent updates :wink:

Greetz

MonkeyBoy
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by MonkeyBoy » Tue May 15, 2012 2:47 pm

I would guess it would be possible, but since Frontmotion Firefox is a nonstandard (read: non-Mozilla) build of Firefox it would require Frontmotion to put up their own update servers for you to pull the updates from, which is what all the other nonstandard builds do. Updating from the official (Mozilla) servers would end up with a half-FM half-Mozilla build, assuming it worked at all, or didn't just pull down a fresh copy of 13/14/67/42/Hike/etc. (disabling AD integration in the process).

FM might be able wrangle up a deal with Mozilla to host the update files on their servers, but that's unlikely given Mozilla's business-hostile attitude as of late.

Rick-PS
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by Rick-PS » Wed May 23, 2012 3:02 am

MonkeyBoy wrote:I would guess it would be possible, but since Frontmotion Firefox is a nonstandard (read: non-Mozilla) build of Firefox it would require Frontmotion to put up their own update servers for you to pull the updates from, which is what all the other nonstandard builds do. Updating from the official (Mozilla) servers would end up with a half-FM half-Mozilla build, assuming it worked at all, or didn't just pull down a fresh copy of 13/14/67/42/Hike/etc. (disabling AD integration in the process).

FM might be able wrangle up a deal with Mozilla to host the update files on their servers, but that's unlikely given Mozilla's business-hostile attitude as of late.
I think that what most people want the option in is the bare MSI package rather than the CE version. I use the MSIs to deploy to all the machines, where the users aren't admins, where I would have to walk around to 25 machines and update them one by one and type in the admin password, or log in using the admin account and update.

Having the option to silent update enabled would mean that we could move away from deploying via MSI from 13 onwards, although we would still keep a copy of the latest MSI for new machines added to the network, and we would get security updates much more promptly (not a criticism of FM as it takes time to rebuild all of those packages.)

I don't think that you would have a hybrid, after the first update you'd be on pure FF13.0.1 or FF14 from Mozilla with silent updating. I guess what we need is a version where the updating system isn't disabled, as it is in the current, or a flag that can be customised by something like Orca, so that we can turn Silent updates on.

jpa
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by jpa » Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:32 pm

If you're not using the FrontMotion CE version or using Group Policy or some such to control deploy of Firefox you might as well use a scripted silent install of the official Firefox. Run Firefox 13 with a silent install switch once, forget it and let the auto update handle it from there.

Rick-PS
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by Rick-PS » Wed Jun 06, 2012 3:50 am

jpa wrote:If you're not using the FrontMotion CE version or using Group Policy or some such to control deploy of Firefox you might as well use a scripted silent install of the official Firefox. Run Firefox 13 with a silent install switch once, forget it and let the auto update handle it from there.
I'd have to write a script in a language that I don't know, with switches for this particular software package that I don't know and do lots of testing which I don't currently have to do.

Or I can just get an MSI, create a transform via Orca and deploy via GPO as assigned software to the computer as I do with all my other software.

jpa
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by jpa » Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:52 am

Rick-PS wrote:Or I can just get an MSI, create a transform via Orca and deploy via GPO as assigned software to the computer as I do with all my other software.
Got it. Well if you're going through all that you might as well do an Administrative install of the MSI and edit the mozilla.cfg file to enable app updates by changing all the following to TRUE.

Code: Select all

lockPref("app.update.enabled", false);
lockPref("app.update.autoUpdateEnabled", false);
lockPref("extensions.update.enabled", true);
lockPref("extensions.update.autoUpdateEnabled", true);
I haven't tested to see if this will enable auto updating with the FM Firefox or not. Just try to deploy ver 12 with the changes and see if it upgrades itself to 13.

If you're better at MSI changes than I you scan figure out how to deploy the mozilla.cfg changes in your MST.

Rick-PS
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by Rick-PS » Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:16 am

jpa wrote:
Rick-PS wrote:Or I can just get an MSI, create a transform via Orca and deploy via GPO as assigned software to the computer as I do with all my other software.
Got it. Well if you're going through all that you might as well do an Administrative install of the MSI and edit the mozilla.cfg file to enable app updates by changing all the following to TRUE.

Code: Select all

lockPref("app.update.enabled", false);
lockPref("app.update.autoUpdateEnabled", false);
lockPref("extensions.update.enabled", true);
lockPref("extensions.update.autoUpdateEnabled", true);
I haven't tested to see if this will enable auto updating with the FM Firefox or not. Just try to deploy ver 12 with the changes and see if it upgrades itself to 13.

If you're better at MSI changes than I you scan figure out how to deploy the mozilla.cfg changes in your MST.
That would assume that I am able to create an AIP, which I don't have a handle on either. I only change very simple things in the MSIs, like removing shortcuts from the desktop etc.

jpa
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Re: Firefox 13 question

Post by jpa » Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:33 pm

Got it. Third and final option for those who can't wait for DraconPern to fulfill this request (which may never come.) Add a modified mozilla.cfg file to the deploy using a transform.

EDIT: Don't do this for turning on app updates; the update mechanism doesn't work and will do a full install to update itself. It can be used to set other settings in the CFG file.

Put the following code into a text file named addmozcfg.vbs (very slightly modified from original located here)

Code: Select all

Option Explicit

Const MY_CONFIG = "mozilla.cfg"
Const CAB_FILE = "mozillacfg.cab"
Const MSI = "Firefox-13.0-en-US.msi"

Dim filesys : Set filesys=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

If filesys.FileExists("temp.tmp") Then filesys.DeleteFile("temp.tmp")
filesys.CopyFile MSI, "temp.tmp"

Dim installer, database, database2, view
Set installer = CreateObject("WindowsInstaller.Installer")
Set database = installer.OpenDatabase ("temp.tmp", 1)
Set database2 = installer.OpenDatabase (MSI, 1)

If Not filesys.FileExists(MY_CONFIG) Then WScript.Quit 2 ' No config file, abort!

Dim objFile, size, result, seq, objCab

' MakeCab object has been depreciated so we fallback to makecab.exe for with Windows 7
On Error Resume Next ' Disable error handling, for a moment
Set objCab = CreateObject("MakeCab.MakeCab.1") 
On Error Goto 0  ' Turn error handling back on

If IsObject(objCab) Then ' Object creation successful - use XP method   
    objCab.CreateCab CAB_FILE, False, False, False
    objCab.AddFile MY_CONFIG, filesys.GetFileName(MY_CONFIG)
    objCab.CloseCab
    Set objCab = Nothing
Else ' object creation failed - try Windows 7 method
    Dim WshShell, oExec
    Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
    Set oExec = WshShell.Exec("makecab " & filesys.GetFileName(MY_CONFIG) & " " & CAB_FILE)
End If

Set objFile = filesys.GetFile(MY_CONFIG)
size = objFile.Size

Set view = database.OpenView ("SELECT LastSequence FROM Media WHERE DiskId = 1")
view.Execute
Set result = view.Fetch
seq = result.StringData(1) + 1 ' Sequence for new configuration file

Set view = database.OpenView ("INSERT INTO Media (DiskId, LastSequence, Cabinet) VALUES ('2', '" & seq & "', '" & CAB_FILE & "')")
view.Execute

Set view = database.OpenView ("UPDATE File SET FileSize = " & size & ", Sequence = " & seq & ", FileName = 'mozilla.cfg' WHERE File = '" & MY_CONFIG & "'")
view.Execute

database.GenerateTransform database2, "CustomConfig.mst"
database.CreateTransformSummaryInfo database2, "CustomConfig.mst", 0, 0
'filesys.DeleteFile("temp.tmp")

Set view = nothing
Set installer = nothing
Set database = nothing
Set database2 = nothing
Set filesys = Nothing
WScript.Quit 0
Create a custom mozilla.cfg with the following suggested contents:

Code: Select all

//
try {
lockPref("app.update.enabled", true);
lockPref("app.update.autoUpdateEnabled", true);
lockPref("extensions.update.enabled", true);
lockPref("extensions.update.autoUpdateEnabled", true);
lockPref("extensions.shownSelectionUI", true);
lockPref("extensions.autoDisableScopes", 0);
lockPref("browser.rights.3.shown", true);
lockPref("toolkit.telemetry.prompted", 2);
lockPref("toolkit.telemetry.rejected", true);
lockPref("toolkit.telemetry.enabled", false);
} catch(e) {
displayError("lockedPref", e);
}
Start a cmd prompt in the directory with the FF MSI, custom mozilla.cfg and modmozcfg.vbs files.
Run the following at the cmd prompt: "cscript modmozcfg.vbs"
You should get two new files: mozillacfg.cab and CustomConfig.mst (and temp.tmp which you can delete)
Make sure your install location contains the FF MSI, CustomConfig.mst and mozillacfg.cab files.
Install with GPO making sure to add the CustomConfig.mst to the Modifications tab
Or install with "msiexec /I FM<ver>.msi TRANSFORMS=CustomConfig.mst
Last edited by jpa on Wed Jun 20, 2012 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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