Have you read this support article?
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile

Yes,

and as I said the Profile Manager no longer exists and that article is hopelessly out of date and inaccurate.

I spent several frustrating hours trying to follow that post, and other related to it. Obviously if the Profile Manager doesn't exist, none of the information is relevant.

I don't know who told you that the Profile Manager no longer exists, but that's pure bunk. Plus that support page doesn't involve the Profile Manager, it deals with data files within the Profile folder. Specifically, copying specific data files from the old Profile to the new Profile.

Maybe if you would explain where you think that article is wrong or out of date we can start trying to help your solve your problem. Or maybe you can explain what you have tried doing thus far, and where you have looked for the Profile folder in Windows 8 and which version of Windows you upgraded from.

"I don't know who told you that the Profile Manager no longer exists,"

Nobody had to tell me, it's simply not there. Not in any folder, via a search or accessible via cmd prompt. It tis no more, at least not on a fresh installation of Win 8 and FF 22

I tried all the recommended ways of finding and opening it and nothing happens.

In any event, I'm trying to restore my old profile from Vista and FF into a fresh version of FF.

I also tried adding the old folder to the profile folder and that made FF unusable. Got the Profile missing message.

But then the support article you mentioned refers to another article that specifically says to use the Profile manager to do this anyway. That's almost the first thing it says.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

As I said, I've spent hours trying to figure this out with no luck.

The Profile Manager is a process or mode which can be launched by a number of different "Run" commands. It's not in a folder or available by searching, only via command line - with Firefox closed.

firefox.exe -p is the simplest and most common command.
The second most common command are these, depending upon your Windows operating system; assuming a default installation location - not a user selected "custom" location.

• On 32-bit Windows: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -p
• On 64-bit Windows: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -p

But you don't need to create a new Profile in the new Firefox installation, you can use the "new" Profile that Firefox created upon installation; just copy the files over to that "new" Profile folder from the old Profile folder. You need to keep the same Profile name as the Firefox installation is expecting to find, or you'll a major problem.

What you need to do is to copy the contents of an old Profile into the new Profile, replacing the new existing files with the older files when Windows Explorer asks what to do.

If you copy the entire folder (and delete the "new" Profile), the Profile folder name won't match what the new Firefox installation is expecting to find - hence the "missing Profile" message. And if you don't delete the "new" Profile, Firefox will continue to use that Profile - not the older one you just copied over.
The Profile name (or names, in the case of multiple Profiles) has the match exactly what is listed in the profiles.ini file, or Firefox won't "see" that Profile and won't be able to use it.

Please re-read this section of that support article, and ignore everything above that section.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Recovering%20important%20data%20from%20an%20old%20profile#w_copying-files-between-profile-folders

Apparently you copied the profile folder, but failed to copy the profiles.ini that registers this profile.
All profiles that Firefox recognizes need to be registered in the profiles.ini file.
If a profile that doesn't exist is marked as "Default=1" then you will get this error message.
You can use the Profile Manager to create a new profile and register this profile by clicking the Choose Folder button and browsing to the folder to select it.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_missing_profile

Guys,

how many times do I have to say this:

The Profile Manager does not exist.

I've done all the ways to find and launch it and nothing happens.

I do know what it is and how to launch it because I've done it many times on earlier OS.

So can you just accept that it's not there and move on?

Now, moving on, after reinstalling FF multiple times and copying and pasting the old profile folder into the new one it eventually worked.

But it did take multiple attempts. Who knows, maybe it was a Sunday thing.

Thanks for all your help.

The Profile Manager does exist. You need to make sure that all Firefox instances are closed if the Profile Manager doesn't open if you double-click a shortcut that has a space and -P appended to the command line.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Kill_application
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Command_Line_Options

You can delete the profiles.ini file to force Firefox to create a new profile.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/profiles.ini_file

Note that Windows hides some file extensions by default.
Among them are .html and .ini and .js and .txt, so you may only see a name without file extension.
You can see the real file type if you open the Properties via the right-click context menu

You can use one of these to start Firefox in Safe Mode:

• On Windows, hold down the Shift key while starting Firefox with a double-click on the Firefox desktop shortcut
• On Mac, hold down the Options key while starting Firefox
• Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode

Sorry to say this but I can't access Profile Manager in Firefox 22 either and I can't find any instances of Firefox running in the background.