Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

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maximilliangreat
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Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by maximilliangreat » Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:58 am

Is it possible to make option in Firefox.adm "Do not make Firefox default browser"?
Here is my situation: there are a lot of internal web applications in my company, which compatible only with IE. So it is important to keep IE default browser (link following, etc...). IE disallowed to go into internet, so it is not a security flaw :)
But after each update of Firefox, I got a pain with changing default browser back. I do it with scripts, but script works only with turned on computers :(
So such option would be very useful.
To tell the truth, I'm ready to edit msi before each deployment, but I don't know what to change :(


Sorry for poor english.

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jab_au
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by jab_au » Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:08 pm

This is something I would really like to see as well.

I want Firefox deployed to my clients, but I don't want it to be their default browser.

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DraconPern
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by DraconPern » Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:26 pm

This is actually possible by doing an admin install first by setting the INSTALLLEVEL. I should probably document that on the site.
FrontMotion Lead Developer

maximilliangreat
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by maximilliangreat » Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:44 am

DraconPern wrote:This is actually possible by doing an admin install first by setting the INSTALLLEVEL. I should probably document that on the site.
Well, I really do not understand how to do this. Googled with no sucsess. Can you provide any tips?

sfichtner
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by sfichtner » Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:23 am

This is how I do it.

After the adminstrative install, browse to the directory where firefox.js lives which should be under Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref

edit firefox.js and change the following:

Change: pref("browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser", true);
to: pref("browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser", false);

There are a couple other things I change too but this one should fix the default issue.

Steve

maximilliangreat
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by maximilliangreat » Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:41 pm

sfichtner I didn't undertand your post.
adminstrative install
What does it mean?
pref("browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser", true);
After installation via GP, firefox is already default browser.
As I can understand, this option is for firefox, not for installer. Same option exist in firefox.adm and works fine.

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DraconPern
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by DraconPern » Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:34 pm

There's two places that happen on setting default browser. The GP option is firefox's check during startup. The other one is during install. See http://forums.frontmotion.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=366 on installlevel
FrontMotion Lead Developer

sfichtner
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by sfichtner » Thu Apr 03, 2008 6:53 am

An administrative install is:

msiexec /a Firefox-2.0.0.13-en-US.msi

This performs an install to a sharepoint with the files extracted. Then I navigate to the firefox.js file on the sharepoint and modify settings. Then create a new GPO to install it.

I fought the problem of Firefox wanting to be the default browser for a long time. Our users only have normal user permissions. Until I started changing the checkDefaultBrowser preference, this was pain in the neck. Changing the setting to false before deploying has been wonderful, Firefox never asks to be the default browser. We have reasons for IE to remain the default browser.

Check out the INSTALLLEVEL from draconpern. I don't modify the default INSTALLLEVEL. Maybe somone can concisely clarify these options for future reference.

Steve

Inexor
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by Inexor » Fri Oct 17, 2008 10:09 am

I've almost got this working but there is some part of this that is not clear. I've created the administrative install point, and edited the firefox.js, changing the setting to false, and Firefox 3.0.3 still installs itself as the default browser. Do I have to create the administrative install point using the INSTALLLEVEL switch, because I did that too, setting that to 3. My assumption was that setting the INSTALLLEVEL to 3 or "ask" and then disabling the "ask" in the firefox.js is what you were saying fixed this. But it doesn't, at least for me.

felix
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by felix » Thu Oct 23, 2008 2:20 am

It seems that administrative install with "INSTALLLEVEL=3" on the command line didn't work for me.
So I modified the msi-package with Orca and changed there the INSTALLLEVEL to 3 manually. Then the administrative install was ok and only the additional adaptation to firefox.js was necessary.

However I still have one problem. Firefox is not the default browser, but there's still on problem in my registry after deploying firefox.
The key HKLM/Software/Classes/http/shell/open/command is "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" -nohome" which seems to be correct after deploying.
But unfortunately the operating system is in german and we don't have a "Program Files" directory. Instead it's called "Programme". So IE can't be found correctly.
The "ProgramFilesPath" variable is correctly set to "C:\Programme".
Any idea how to avoid this?
How does the msi-package modifies the "open/command"-registry entries?

Felix

Inexor
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by Inexor » Thu Oct 23, 2008 9:51 pm

Well, I've tried every combination and I can't get it to work. It's probably something silly I'm doing wrong but I can't keep FireFox from becoming the default browser during the install. Any ideas? Any chance for a 1 - 2 - 3 step set of instructions?

MRIS
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Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by MRIS » Tue Oct 28, 2008 3:38 am

Here is a transform file that ensures firefox 3.0.3 is not set as the default browser during a group policy installation of the MSI file.

This forum doesn't allow attaching of even small files so I've rapid-shared this for now. 10 downloads only...

http://rapidshare.com/files/158273002/dont-make-default.mst.html

For those of you more technically inclined, this file was made with ORCA, and simply changing the INSTALLLEVEL to 3 within the property section of the MSI.

Here is a uuencoded version of the same file...

Code: Select all


begin 600 dont-make-default.mst
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end

Inexor
Posts:25
Joined:Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:45 am

Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by Inexor » Wed Oct 29, 2008 10:04 am

Further evidence there must be another factor at work here. That transform file does the exact same things that I did manually to the .msi file. Either I have a step out of order or I have something else contradicting my preferences.

Inexor
Posts:25
Joined:Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:45 am

Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by Inexor » Tue Jan 06, 2009 12:58 pm

Any further information on this problem? I have been very pleased with the other aspects of this installer, but screwing up the default browser every time I patch Firefox is a real bummer for my users. I would just like the default browser to stay "as is" when I do my install. Thanks.

MRIS
Posts:3
Joined:Tue Oct 28, 2008 3:09 am

Re: Do not make Firefox default browser during installation

Post by MRIS » Tue Jan 06, 2009 9:56 pm

you need to do both things:

1. do the admin extraction to extract the msi content to a folder, like this:

msiexec /a Firefox-3.0.5-en-US.msi

then just tell it to put it in a folder, eg: \\server\share\ff305\

2. edit the firefox.js file as per this thread, specifically:

change this:
pref("browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser", true);
to this:
pref("browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser", false);


3. deploy it using the extracted MSI and files with a transform that sets the install level as discussed above, specifically,

Use the ORCA editor to make a transform, and changine the INSTALLLEVEL to 3 within the property section.

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