VMware Horizon Community
girakul
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Upgrading from Firefox 11 to Firefox 12

Hey guys, how do I thin firefox where it will take over the bookmarks on machines to where it was going to get deployed to and replace Firefox 11?

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17 Replies
Lakshman
Champion
Champion

Hi,

Do you mean replacing Firefox 11 bookmarks with Firefox 12?

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girakul
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have a shortcut for 11 on each of the user's desktops.  The sandbox is located locally for this app.  I am going to upgrade from 11 to 12.  I will just be packaging 12 and appending it with a .1 extension.  Will this keep my favorites when the user's click on the shortcut?  I am concerned that the old sandbox will be overwritten.

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Lakshman
Champion
Champion

The shortcut will launch the new .1 extension (Firefox 12). Please make sure to include all the required bookmarks from 11 to 12

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girakul
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am looking to retain the favorite bookmarks on each user's computer once I push the new version out. Each user has different favorites...

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Lakshman
Champion
Champion

Are you keeping the sandbox name common for both 11 and 12?

1. If they are same, launching the shortcut (Firefox 12) will have the customization done in the existing sandbox (Firefox 11). Note that if a sandbox is already present, it will be used for the new version (It will never get overwritten)

2. If they are different, Firefox 12 will create its new sandbox (no customization of Firefox 11 applies here)

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girakul
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Sounds good, I will test it out, thanks.

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Lakshman
Champion
Champion

I have just checked the behaviour by keeping same sandbox name for both the versions (11 and 12).

Though the sandbox is retained, the new version of Firefox creates a new profile, thereby not retaining the old bookmark.

Lakshman
Champion
Champion

I have given another try to retain the same profile, but everytime firefox creates a new profile for a newer version.

Have you had a chance to overcome this?

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girakul
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

No i have not had any success with it... Old bookmarks are getting lost during the upgrade...  It's a different bubble...

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Lakshman
Champion
Champion

Well, i think i have figured out a solution for this issue.

Firefox 11 ThinApp:

Delete the %AppData% folder and rebuild the ThinApp.

Firefox 12 ThinApp:

1. Set SandboxName and InventoryName to be same as that of Firefox 11 (For eg: Mozilla Firefox 11)

2. Delete the %AppData% folder and rebuild the ThinApp.

To test, launch Firefox 11 ThinApp and create bookmarks like google.com etc. Now close Firefox 11 and launch Firefox 12 ThinApp.

You can see that the existing sandbox created by Firefox 11 is used by Firefox 12 and also the same profile is being used.

To confirm that, when the Firefox 12 ThinApp launches, check for the same bookmarks present or not.

I have tried this solution and it works Smiley Happy

Lakshman
Champion
Champion

Please try the solution on a non-production system and check if it works...

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girakul
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Will do that today, thanks man!

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Ziegenfus
Contributor
Contributor

I am currently out of the office. I have limited email access and will get back to you as soon as possible.

Regards,

Stephen Ziegenfus

<http://www.balch.com>

Stephen Ziegenfus, Systems Administrator, Balch & Bingham LLP

1901 Sixth Avenue North • Suite 1500 • Birmingham, AL 35203-4642

t: (205) 488-5401 f: (205) 488-5834 e: sziegenfus@balch.com

www.balch.com<http://www.balch.com

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girakul
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Alright, I've tried this, but it does not work for us. When I delete the %appdata% folder I lose all the pre-configured settings, security certificate, and firebug that I've pre-inserted into firefox... Smart approach, and it would of worked if that was not the issue... But unfortunately in our environment we need it to be customized...

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LukeRobertson
Contributor
Contributor

Has anyone made any further progress regarding this issue?  I'm having the same issue.

-Luke

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rossvance
Contributor
Contributor

Would persona management be able to copy the favorites?

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LukeRobertson
Contributor
Contributor

I was able to come up with a fix for migrating bookmarks and some other settings (not sure of the entirety of them) from one version to another for Firefox.  I'm updating from version 13 to 14 using TA 4.72 on a Win7 capture machine; using a WinXP capture machine also works.

After capturing your Firefox install, the profile that was created when installing Firefox is saved in the package folder in %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles and it is named "random 8 character string".default.  Also, if you open the profiles.ini file in %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox you will see the Path=Profiles/"random 8 character string".default.  In order to make the migration work the Sandbox Name in the new version MUST be the same as the old version.  However, the Inventory Names can be different.

Go to %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles in your old version and find out what the random 8 character profile name is, lets say it's a1b2c3d4.  Now go to your new version package and change whatever the new version "random 8 character string" is to a1b2c3d4.  Change it in the "folder".default AND in the profiles.ini file.

Rebuild and deploy your new package and you should be good.  The one issue that I have found with this is that if some of your settings are different, i.e. in the old version you had "check for updates" and in the new version you have "never check for updates", the setting will not get overwritten, so Firefox will still check for updates.  So in your initial package make sure all the settings are exactly how you want them before you deploy it.

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