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I've been struggling for months to standardize a deployment of Firefox ESR across various client environments that reliably auto-updates and doesn't cause UAC prompts and XULRunner profile error pop-ups(I work in IT).

We deploy Firefox ESR in bulk on machines via a batch script which runs as SYSTEM, with msiexec /i and /qn flags.

Firefox installs fine, but then users are typically met with a UAC prompt when they first try to run Firefox. If they decline, then the UAC prompt comes back again next time and often fails to update at all, so the machine is left on an older, vulnerable version.

Regarding the environment: we have deployed the Firefox ESR admx templates and enabled the relevant auto update settings in Group Policy. But only some machines seem to stay up to date, and it seems like this only happens if a user with local administrative privileges has run the program at least once.

What I find unusual is that Firefox seems to attempt to make a "Background Updater" scheduled task for every user that runs the software on each PC, but these users do not have administrative privileges, and the scheduled task is set to only run when that user is logged in. Obviously a scheduled task running as a user with limited privileges isn't going to be able to update files in the Mozilla/Firefox subdirectory in "Program Files" as by default that's read-only access for non-admin users. And, obviously, if a user with local admin privileges DOES log into the machine, then it can update once, but then the scheduled task that it creates for that user (now with admin privileges) will only run when that user logs in - and we don't login as "admin"-privileged users day-to-day.

So, various machines are out of date, running vulnerable Firefox 128 instead of 140 or 142 even though they're all deployed from the same image and have the same policies and restrictions, and ran the same installer for Firefox.

Is there some reason why the auto update scheduled task isn't created at installation time, when administrative privileges have been granted? It's very odd that it doesn't, because then every time a user logs into a machine it seems like Firefox ESR creates the background upgrade task under a non-admin user which simply won't work. I see machines having 4 or 5 background upgrade scheduled tasks, all created by Firefox ESR, and yet the software still won't update - there's a UAC prompt every time the program launches, and going to Help -> About shows "Restart Firefox to update..." but then when clicking the button to restart Firefox, we get the UAC prompt, user doesn't have privileges, so this goes around and around in circles.

Is there a reliable way to keep Firefox up to date without manually logging into each machine and going through the UAC prompts? Can we manually create a scheduled task with the correct user account that has privileges to actually upgrade Firefox?

The background auto update mechanism simply doesn't make sense to our team on a machine-wide install.

The last Firefox update to one of my Windows 10 machines was to 115 (which I thought was only for Win 7 & 8 installs). When I review the Help/About screen it is requesting an upgrade to 128, but 146 is the latest release. The ESR release for Win10 is 140.

After the latest (mid-December) Windows update destroyed so many things, including the sizing, movement, and display of Firefox windows, I'm freezing the automatic Microsoft update sequence, and installing the ESR 140 release as well.

Just trying to understand how Firefox determines which update level a browser will automatically download and install based on an existing, standard or ESR, release it finds installed.

Thank you.

Hi,

I installed Thunderbird 140.2.1 on WIndows 11 v25H2 with winget but it autoupdated to release version 144. I uninstalled release version 144, re-installed esr version and disabled Updates in Settings, but it auto-updated to release version. So I uninstalled one more time release version, installed esr 144, disabled Updates in Settings and I set up the registry key DisableAppUpdate at 1 but Thunderbird auto-updated again to release version 144.0

Please, can you tell me what can I do to prevent Thunderbird esr auto-updating to release version ?

Thanks.

Ever since I stupidly let Thunderbird 'update' to 140.5esr 64bit the date format has been wrecked. The program now forces the plain weird US date format of Month-Day-Year. I hoped that this obvious error would be fixed but it's been rather a long time now and the problem - and IT IS A PROBLEM - hasn't been addressed. It looks like Thunderbird is following Firefox in making each version worse. Whilst I switched to Pale Moon long ago there is as yet no fork of Thunderbird. If I were still on Windows for internet use I would just install an older version alas I do not know how to do this on Linux (Q4os Trinity) PLEASE fix this problem. I am far from the first to point this massive mistake out.

I am genuinely grateful to the people who work on these projects but a little more effort on actually being able to use the programs would be a substantial advance.

It appears that any ESR version will auto upgrade to the Release version right after you close the program and shut your machine down. When you go back online, surprise!, you now have 144.0.1 installed with HALF your folders missing.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1548668/edit/1779923#answer-preview

I would like to know, if there is a reason that the Thunderbird Flatpak still remains on a version published on July 7. Iam switching back to Thunderbird, because of the new Microsoft Exchange Feature.

Is there a Timeline for how the Flatpak updates are delayed or anything that can be done to push the current version into Flathub?

I am using version 88.0 and browser, both outdated and not supported. How do I update to current version and update browser? I am 80 yrs old and not computer literate, please keep it simple. Also, I am alone, not help available. Thank you

Being in a rush after a botched TB update from v120 to 140.0esr, and missing disk backups, I reinstalled v102 and recreated two of my four email provider accounts in TB 102. Now. I'd like to try the update again this way: 1. export the few messages downloaded to the reinstalled v102 2. Completely delete v102 and any traces of TB on my C: disk (Program Files folder, user account folders, registry...) 3. Install the latest version (143 as I write this) 4. Copy and set as default (or import?) a two-weeks old disk backup of the old TB v102 profile into v143 without anything missing:

   - Four email accounts
   - All the messages in all the mailbox folders (received, sent, drafts, etc.) of these accounts
   - The complete archives folders structure and content
   - All the other folders I created as direct children of the email accounts in the TB "Folders" outline and their contents
   - one RSS feeds account and its settings
   - ~40 RSS feeds subscriptions and their settings

5. Import the recent messages from step 1 into the corresponding TB accounts.

Is that the correct way to do this?

I'm wondering about a few things:

   - Best email export format for later import?
   - Will the restored email accounts automagically reconnect to the provider accounts? I may have changed the format of one of them from Imap to pop3, and the server handled it very well, but it would be Imap again in TB after restoring the disk backup...
   - Why is v140 the only one with ESR in its name and not the following ones? I was on ESR when I froze 102 and blocked updates)
   - Is the Sqlite DB part ot the TB account file structure, and is it carried over when moving or duplicating that account?
   - Has the TB account folder and/or the Sqlite DB changed format between v102 and v143?

P.S. the email account for this post is among the inactive ones at the moment!

Version 146.01 has me discombobulated. no shortcuts to add on anymore. can I have the previous version with my shortcuts?

Moderator note: This question has been edited to remove an unintended link and sensitive information. Moderator note: See also /questions/1560086.