Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

[DraconPern]

your computers are not able to read the install network files.

[MarkErrington]

Deployed 3.0.8 via GPO this morning, with a transform to set INSTALLLEVEL=3 (instead of 1000 for the complete install) and it's still setting itself as the default browser.

[kcorbo]

I'm still having the default browser issue with release 3.0.8 as well. I tried setting different install levels, doing an administrative install and changing the javascript file, and it still won't budge.

[DraconPern]

Found the problem. Going to create a replacement set of files. Please wait for it. Thanks!

[TalkingDogs]

Any progress? Just deployed the MSI and this has caused a few problems.

[DraconPern]

They were updated a while back. Sent out an email on the mailing list.

[tcannon]

I'd like to chime in as having this problem as well. The install level is set to 3, the entry in the prefs.js file is set to false, yet FF insists on becoming the default browser after installation by GPO. In my case this involves only 8 pcs in a student computer lab, and I have to go to each pc and manually reset IE to be the default browser after each new version of FF is installed. TC

[jpa]

In desperation I started hacking at the MSI. The following is a HACK with near zero understanding of what allows it to work.

Perform admin install with "MSIExec /a Firefox-3.0.10-en-US.msi"
Edit MSI with ORCA:
Set Property\INSTALLLEVEL = 3
(HACK) Set Feature\F_SetDefaultBrowser Level = 1004 (Higher than 1000)
Change "browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser" to false in "Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref\firefox.js."

Doing the above I successfully deployed FF 3.0.10 via GPO without setting Firefox as default and without it asking for default. Your mileage may vary.

John-Paul

[dgalanter]

I really don't want to do an admin install as I don't push out via GPO, but use Altiris instead just running a batchfile that installs via the MSI. Is there anyway that I can modify the MSI or use some command-line to not make it the default? This has become a real hassle.

[jpa]

I really don't want to do an admin install ...

The admin install is so you can edit the default browser check out of the firefox.js file. You can still use ORCA to edit the MSI as I described. Just leave out the admin install and editing firefox.js steps.

I still haven't tracked down what is happening that causes the problem. I have seen that both IE and Firefox think they're not default (at least according to their UI.)

[dgalanter]

I really don't want to do an admin install ...

The admin install is so you can edit the default browser check out of the firefox.js file. You can still use ORCA to edit the MSI as I described. Just leave out the admin install and editing firefox.js steps.

I still haven't tracked down what is happening that causes the problem. I have seen that both IE and Firefox think they're not default (at least according to their UI.)

Okay, so I do an admin install to a folder on a share drive. I then use ORCA to edit the INSTALLLEVEL in the MSI, but how does then the MSI know to use the edited firefox.js file? I am new to this. Do I snug it back in the MSI file somehow, or tell the MSI "use this file" in some way? Hep me, pease.

[jpa]

how does then the MSI know to use the edited firefox.js file?

Sorry, I was leaving out the admin install and firefox.js edit steps entirely. So you don't do an admin install or edit the js file. The consequence of not editing the firefox.js file is that Firefox prompts to become the default the first time it's launched.

I don't know of any free tools that will let you edit files in an MSI.

[dgalanter]

I'm either confused, or clear on this but helpless.

Am I correct in that I cannot simply use a command-line MSI install to make Firefox not force itself to be default?

If so, can I do an admin install, change the firefox.js file, and then do an Altiris batchfile install using a command line that calls the files from the admin install?

[jpa]

You should probably ignore everything I typed before as I may have figured out what's really going on. I'm able to reproduce the default browser problems using unmodified MSI files. We'll see if DraconPern concurs and can fix the behaviour.

To reproduce:
Install Firefox 3.0.9 (msiexec /i Firefox-3.0.9-en-Us.msi /qb INSTALLLEVEL=3)
Install Firefox 3.0.10 (msiexec /i Firefox-3.0.10-en-Us.msi /qb INSTALLLEVEL=3)

IE is still the default browser but it *thinks* it is not because the second Firefox MSI install sets a registry key a bit differently than IE expects triggering its "I'm not the default browser" prompt.

My not exhaustive testing says HKCR\ftp\shell\open\command\(Default) should be ""C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" %1" rather than ""C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" -nohome" that the second Firefox install sets it to.

[jpa]

Supposedly IE looks to the keys defined in Knowledge Base article 224816 to determine if it's the default browser.