Why has my installation of Firefox never been upgraded to 64 bit?
I've had the same hardware (and software installation) since 2013. My computer has always been 64 bit, and has had 16GB of memory. When I first installed it, I had Windows 8.1 64-bit. At the time for whatever reason, Firefox installed as 32-bit. It's remained that way ever since. Every update that comes out, it stays as 32 bit. My understanding from the wiki is that I should have been upgraded a long time ago. Looking through my registry, I can see that there is a "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla\Firefox\32to64DidMigrate" key, which just contains a DWORD with the installation path as the name, and 0 as the value.
Why is it that Firefox has never automatically upgraded me to 64 bit?
(I understand that I can manually uninstall Firefox and reinstall the 64-bit version from Mozilla, but I'd like to understand why I seem to be in this locked state in case there are other users out there like me.)
Geändert am von tgp1994
Ausgewählte Lösung
The Firefox 56.0.1 updater contained code to cross-upgrade 32-bit Firefox users to 64-bit Firefox. However, that was a one-time feature, so if you happened to skip that update, that might explain it.
It's also possible that the updater checked for certain required or conflicting software and then didn't cross-upgrade as a result of what it found. In that case, your guess is as good as ours as to what might be the issue.
Diese Antwort im Kontext lesen 👍 2Alle Antworten (6)
Do not know. Please uninstall Firefox. Then Delete the Mozilla Firefox Folders in C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files(x86) Then restart system. Then run Windows Disk Cleanup. (Note: This should be Pinned and run Weekly, If never done below expect 10's of gig's) Then run it again and click the button that says Cleanup System Files. Note: your Firefox Profile is saved. But you should make a back up before you do :
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/export-firefox-bookmarks-to-backup-or-transfer
Reinstall with Current Release Firefox 57.0.4 with a Full Version Installer
Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.
Ausgewählte Lösung
The Firefox 56.0.1 updater contained code to cross-upgrade 32-bit Firefox users to 64-bit Firefox. However, that was a one-time feature, so if you happened to skip that update, that might explain it.
It's also possible that the updater checked for certain required or conflicting software and then didn't cross-upgrade as a result of what it found. In that case, your guess is as good as ours as to what might be the issue.
Yes Firefox 56.0.1 was for Windows users in mind and to get 32-bit Firefox users on 64-bit Windows 7, 8, 10 with 2+GB RAM to be updated to 64-bit (Win64) Firefox. https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/56.0.1/releasenotes/
There were no Win64 Firefox Releases until Firefox 42.0 and then listed on www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ at Firefox 43.0 Release. Windows users downloading Firefox from www.mozilla.org were served the 32-bit online stub installer for Windows.
Firefox 55.0 was the first Release to have a new stub installer (served on www.mozilla.org) for Windows as Firefox for Windows 64-bit is now installed by default on 64-bit systems with at least 2GB of RAM
@jscher and James; Ah, I wasn't aware that the upgrade was a one strike and you're out type deal. I guess I'll go ahead and get the installer if it's never going to happen again. Good luck to anyone else who missed the upgrade :)
Thank you for your replies.
Hi tgp1994, if you use the locally installed version of Microsoft Office, make a temporary change of your default browser to IE before removing 32-bit Firefox. Otherwise, Office can become hopelessly confused about your default browser.
jscher2000 said
Hi tgp1994, if you use the locally installed version of Microsoft Office, make a temporary change of your default browser to IE before removing 32-bit Firefox. Otherwise, Office can become hopelessly confused about your default browser.
That's an interesting one, thank you for the tip!