Cannot uninstall per-user installation of Firefox without elevating
I've been tasked with removing Firefox from all Windows workstations in our enterprise environment. Our users don't have local admin, so when they install Firefox, it is installed in the user's profile.
I've just installed Firefox 143.0.1 in my own user profile for testing purposes. However, when I attempt to uninstall, either from Control Panel or by running %localappdata%\Mozilla Firefox\uninstall\helper.exe manually, UAC prompts for elevation, even though I installed without elevating.
I've dug in a bit more, and I found this was an issue five years ago as well:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1286070
According to that post, the issue was resolved, but it seems to have come back.
Any help would be appreciated.
Zvolené řešení
It turns out that when helper.exe is run in the user context with the /S switch, it performs the uninstall as expected without prompting for elevation. So, it was user error in the end. Sorry for the trouble.
As far as why we are removing Firefox everywhere, that is because our organization has standardized on Microsoft Edge. We want to minimize our attack surface and simplify management, so all third-party browsers (including Firefox, Chrome, Brave, etc.) are being removed. Nothing personal 🙂
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Yeah, this is one of those annoyances with per-user installs. Even though it’s installed in your profile, the uninstaller still wants elevated permissions to remove files and registry entries in some cases. In an enterprise setup, your best bet is usually to script it with admin rights or use something like SCCM/Intune to remove it silently.
I'm checking on this, but my bigger question is why are you removing Firefox everywhere? :(
Zvolené řešení
It turns out that when helper.exe is run in the user context with the /S switch, it performs the uninstall as expected without prompting for elevation. So, it was user error in the end. Sorry for the trouble.
As far as why we are removing Firefox everywhere, that is because our organization has standardized on Microsoft Edge. We want to minimize our attack surface and simplify management, so all third-party browsers (including Firefox, Chrome, Brave, etc.) are being removed. Nothing personal 🙂
> It turns out that when helper.exe is run in the user context with the /S switch, it performs the uninstall as expected without prompting for elevation. So, it was user error in the end. Sorry for the trouble.
That's good to know!
> As far as why we are removing Firefox everywhere, that is because our organization has standardized on Microsoft Edge. We want to minimize our attack surface and simplify management, so all third-party browsers (including Firefox, Chrome, Brave, etc.) are being removed.
I hope you never have a Chromium specific issues that requires another browser. But if you do, we'll be here. :)
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