Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

[jpa]

Woops, my bad.

It looks like you need to set the INSTALLLEVEL property in the MSI before you do an admin install. At least when editing the MSI directly and not using a MST.

[hoffmanr]

This is a big problem. I am sorry I used Firefox Frontmotion now. Firefox version 3.0.6, 3.0.8 worked fine, the Firefox as a default Browser problem did not appear, users still had IE. Everything was fine.
So then trustingly, I proceed to use Frontmotion Firefox 3.5.7 and bang...all users have Firefox as a default users cannot change back to IE themselves because they have only User rights !!!! I am going to have to visit each machine and login as admin to correct this.

This frigging MSI saved me no time at ALL. It appears no one has taken this problem seriously as this thread goes on and on. My advise to anyone reading this Do not deploy Frontmotion it will cause you more problems than naught. Until this is fixed I will never use it again.

[jlester]

@hoffmanr: Perhaps you should have done more extensive testing before rolling out Frontmotion Firefox to your entire organization, that way you could discover any problems and resolve them before they cause extensive damage.

What's worked for me is downloading Orca and editing the msi:

Under the 'Feature' table change 'F_SetDefaultBrowser' level to '6'
Under the 'Property' table change 'INSTALLLEVEL' to '3'
Under the 'Registry' table remove RegKey045

So far we've found that firefox will not become the default browser on a fresh install, but if it was installed previously as the default browser those settings will remain. Also no extra shortcuts will be added but, again, if it was installed previously those preexisting shortcuts will still remain.

I've personally exhausted every test scenario I can think of and found that it works every time. Has anyone else had luck/problems with this method?

[abaldauf]

I think I might have found some useful informations about why and when this happens...

I just created an admin install package and modified it (roughly according to the last instructions provided by Icy).

-FIRST thing-
As I was a bit sloppy I deleted too much from the msi and the installer failed, so I tried installing with msiexec's logging functions (which showed me what had been deleted unintentionally). Seeing through the log I found an interesting fact: A line saying somethink like "INSTALLLEVEL: found value 3, setting to 5", which means that this property obviously is ignored (at least on the systems I tested). So that would explain why the level property would not work...

-SECOND thing-
When the installer worked again (with the reg values removed from the msi), I manually installed the package and IE still was the default browser. So I uninstalled it again (because I planned to distribute via GPO) and started IE... Now *not* being the default browser any more. I looked through the registry (as I now knew the keys where to search for errors) and found the following:

The default entries of

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\HTTP\shell\open\command
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\https\shell\open\command
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp\shell\open\command

had been set to
"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" -nohome
which has 2 errors in it:

• As my systems are mostly german ones (with a different path), this path is simply wrong. So I guess this value is directly coded into the uninstall routines, instead of querying the %ProgramFiles% environment variable...
• The argument has to be %1 instead of -nohome as this passes over the url / file to be opened...

I hope this is useful to get this flaw fixed...

[jpa]

The root problem is the Frontmotion MSIs call a custom DLL on uninstall or upgrade which incorrectly sets registry keys and cause the "default browser" issue. I have documented this earlier in the thread. It's pretty simple stuff. This must be fixed by DraconPern. I doubt it will be as we've been through several Firefox revisions without it being addressed. The earlier fixes in the thread hack the MSI so that it doesn't call the uninstall DLL or it runs but doesn't think it needs to modify the registry incorrectly.

I have given up and simply set Firefox and IE not to check if they're the default browser on startup. Works good enough for us here.

[vpars]

I've got to agree with JPA this is really annoying I've had the run around because of an issue that should be a simple fix. Hopefully the guys will get to this soon. I know JPA will tell me not to hold my breath!

[GaGirrl]

I have given up and simply set Firefox and IE not to check if they're the default browser on startup. Works good enough for us here.

We did the same thing. I set a registry key in my GPO that changes IE to be the default browser and sets FF to not check if it's the default browser, in essence, setting IE as the default.

This is a simple fix that really needs to be addressed before a new .msi is released, DraconPern.

[dmc]

It's a shame that this problem caused by a custom action is ruining everyone's party.

I've been cheating by executing "c:\windows\system32\shmgrate.exe OCInstallReinstallIE" after every Firefox update. I mentioned this about a year ago when I was looking for a solution that would work for me on our XP machines. This was fine as long as IE6 was implemented. Yes, we used a group policy to block updates to IE7 on our XP machines.

Now that I'm deploying on more Vista machines I'm resorting to "ie4uinit.exe -reinstall" as my "Vista" workaround. Like the previous solution, this forces IE as the default browser, but it works for IE7 whereas the previous solution only worked for IE6. Who knows where we'll end up with IE8....

This works for me, but I'd love to see this problem solved at the source sometime in the future. I'm just hoping I don't run out of band-aids.

[ef2007]

We did the same thing. I set a registry key in my GPO that changes IE to be the default browser and sets FF to not check if it's the default browser, in essence, setting IE as the default.

Could you please share these registry hack? Are they user profile related or per machine?
Thank you

[jpa]

FYI: If you don't want FF to be the default browser with the Firefox 3.6.6 version MSI you need to edit the MSI as jlester suggested earlier.

Under the 'Feature' table change 'F_SetDefaultBrowser' level to '6'
Under the 'Property' table change 'INSTALLLEVEL' to '3'

The F_SetDefaultBrowser level to 6 is new for this version. Although anything higher than 3 would work. Previously you could get away without changing it in the MSI because it was set to 4. The 3.6.6 MSI has this set to 3.

[ef2007]

Has anyone tried creating a .mst transform to change values from "RegKey075" to "RegKey095" in the "Registry" table of the latest FF CE msi file?
I think that correcting those values to reflect default (pre-FF deploying) ones, we could fix the issue.

[jpa]

Have not tried this. I'm not sure it would help as the custom dll that is supposed to set IE as default has these strings hard coded. At least strings.exe reports so.

[ef2007]

TO ANYONE IN FRONTMOTION IN CHARGE OF THE FF CE.

Mozilla released FF 3.6.7:
PLEASE FIX THIS BORING AND DISAPPOINTING ISSUE BEFORE RELEASING FF CE 3.6.7
I'm fed up of apologizing with all our corporate users after deploying latest FF CE which continues to break default browser settings, regardless of this forum users complaints.
I don't know if the issue is caused by "RegKey075" - "RegKey095" values in the "Registry" table of the .msi file or by the strings.exe file or by both of them.
I only know that each time I deploy via AD GPO the latest FF CE, all well-known registry values we discussed in this forum which point to the IE executable are changed to "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE":
FOR NON-ENGLISH SYSTEMS LIKE MINE, THIS PATH IS WRONG AND IT HAS TO BE CHANGED TO REFLECT THE %PROGRAMFILES% ENV. VAR. CONTENT.

I hope that someone at Frontmotion will take care of fixing this bug forever.

Edoardo

[ef2007]

Did anyone tested if this issue has been fixed in the latest FF CE ver. 3.6.8?

[jpa]

Yes. Not fixed.