Transfering user profile from 60.7 ESR to 72.0.1 automatically
Hello All, I work for an organization and we are trying to upgrade from 60.7 ESR to 72.0.1 using a automated process. In doing so, I am having trouble having firefox use the current user profile in 60.7 and having firefox 72.0.1 defaulting to that same profile upon initial launch after installation. Instead, the new firefox creates a new profile and uses that instead of using the old profile. So my question is: is there a way to force firefox to use the old profile prior to installing FF 72? If not, is there a way to suppress the creation of a new profile so it is never created in the first place?
All Replies (8)
Type about:profiles<enter> in the address bar.
That doesn't solve my problem though. I know I can switch profiles but I'm trying to automate the process which means that a user wouldn't have to do anything to get back up and running post installation.
Not only will it create a new profile and switch to it, it may corrupt the old profile, unless this was fixed in 72 (not mentioned in release notes). Had it happen myself, and there are reports on the web. This seems to be due to changes in the file formats used in the profile. Not sure why there can be corruption or deletion of items, though.
I can't find an available Group Policy object or Autoconfig pref (about:config pref) which will handle this.
This is the closest thing, and probably not useful. https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/README.md#legacyprofiles
Maybe you would have a better idea https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-group-policy-windows https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-autoconfig
The only suggestion i can make is to put a shortcut on the desktop which starts the profile manager first, so users can choose their old profile and make it default. (This requires they have any idea what they are looking at or for.)
I do not think Firefox uses a registry entry at all for the active user profile location, so no help there. It also doesn't keep an entry in about:config, only about:profiles, which is dynamically generated as far as i can tell.
If the profiles only have the suffix .default, maybe changing them to .default-release would fool Firefox/installer.
Any reason for not updating to Firefox 68 ESR?
the-edmeister said
Any reason for not updating to Firefox 68 ESR?
My organization needs to move to rapid release because we make use of a program which allows us to edit excel sheets and such using an app and it was tested and works in 72.
crankygoat said
Not only will it create a new profile and switch to it, it may corrupt the old profile, unless this was fixed in 72 (not mentioned in release notes). Had it happen myself, and there are reports on the web. This seems to be due to changes in the file formats used in the profile. Not sure why there can be corruption or deletion of items, though. I can't find an available Group Policy object or Autoconfig pref (about:config pref) which will handle this. This is the closest thing, and probably not useful. https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/README.md#legacyprofiles Maybe you would have a better idea https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-group-policy-windows https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-autoconfig The only suggestion i can make is to put a shortcut on the desktop which starts the profile manager first, so users can choose their old profile and make it default. (This requires they have any idea what they are looking at or for.) I do not think Firefox uses a registry entry at all for the active user profile location, so no help there. It also doesn't keep an entry in about:config, only about:profiles, which is dynamically generated as far as i can tell. If the profiles only have the suffix .default, maybe changing them to .default-release would fool Firefox/installer.
Thanks for the insightful response. I may try to make use of that Legacy profiles feature to see if it renders any changes. I'm currently using a policies.json to change policies however and this states that legacy can only be changed in GPO. Do you think I could use both to modify my policies? If not, I could try to replicate my modifications witihin my .json over to the GPO. Also how do I even use GPO? I'm looking at the templates but am unsure of how to set legacyprofiles to ON
I don't really do group policy, but group policy and policies.json are complementary and they don't overlap.
But here's a thing:
I had missed it when looking in my directories - i apparently mis-clicked into the wrong folder - but there is a profiles.ini and another file install.ini in the root of the profiles folder, one level up (\firefox).
Profiles.ini will force FF to open with the profile specified in there. It is also tied to an install identifier, which is also in install.ini. I do not know exactly what the identifier is pegged to, but it is at least different between the normal rapid release channel and the developer version channel. I don't think it varies with version number from looking on the net. [Edit: Seems to be pegged to the release channel.]
So, you can try a test machine updating from your ESR to RR, with a profile.ini edited to contain:
[Install4F96D1932A9F858E] Default=xxxxxxxx.default-release Locked=1
Where the id in the install section header is the correct new one, probably check that, and the Default= is set to the current active profile name with the randomalphanumeric.default (or default-release, or whatever it might be if they were given custom names once upon a time). The correct Profilen section will have Default=1 at the bottom.
This might keep the profile from changing, unless Firefox is forcing the issue. In which case... copy out the default profile names before install, and merge them back into the ini after install, before anyone starts their browser. That must be a scriptable thing.
Modified by crankygoat
Firefox 67 and later can use a dedicated profile for each of the Firefox update channels and will lock the profile, so it can only be used by Firefox in a specific installation folder. For Release versions this profile would be a xxxxxxxx.default-release profile, profiles used in older Firefox versions usually used a xxxxxxxx.default profile (a refresh adds a time stamp).