Uninstalled Firefox using Revo Uninstaller (advanced mode) in Vista, and now Firefox will not run, period. No task in task manager. What dependencies did I screw up?
I wanted to reinstall Firefox to get rid of all the old Java libraries still installed. I uninstalled using Revo Uninstaller in Advanced mode, and I didn't bother checking what it did this time. I know firefox needs something to exist before it will start, otherwise I wouldn't be having this problem.
This happened
Every time Firefox opened
I uninstalled Firefox with Revo Uninstaller in Advanced Mode
User Agent
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/533.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/5.0.375.38 Safari/533.4
All Replies (6)
Yes, it needs the user profile, I think. Granted you probably lost all your bookmarks and passwords and history and so on...
Go to your profile folder and delete it (or back it up, maybe there's stuff you can scavange from there).
Try to reinstall Firefox now. It should create a new profile.
And the Java stuff will still be there. It is uninstalled separately at your operating system's control panel, I believe. You can disable the plugins you don't want, too. Just go into Tools > Add-ons > Plugins.
And for future reference, if you uninstall Firefox and check the box that says to delete your private data too, it will clean every single trace of Firefox from your computer. This isn't some fishy software you download from a fishy site. Firefox is clean and safe to use :)
Oh I know that. I've been using it since version 2.X
I knew about the profile thing. I backed it up. I just didn't think twice about what Revo wanted to delete. It usually is completely fine. I have alot of knowledge on the inner workings of Windows, but I've never considered how much or how little firefox integrates into other projects like, say, XUL's runtime environment, or other things like that. I know about the registry, what all is in it, and user files, program data folders, etc. It's just interesting that something like this got past me.
yet, it still doesn't work. i've thought of everything that could possibly go into causing this problem, short of looking at the Fx 3.6.3 source code.
I have a solution, however I cannot execute it myself, because I need a host computer that doesn't already have the problem.
I need a volunteer to use Revo Uninstaller (it's free, dont worry) to pretend to uninstall Firefox 3.6.3 on Vista 64-bit. When the native uninstaller launches for Firefox, cancel the uninstall, then continue with Revo's advanced uninstall procedure, and when it gets to the Registration entries screenshot the whole thing so that you know what registration entries were deleted, then find them using the Registry editor (Start>Run>"regedit"), and export each key to a .REG file so I can compare them to my own (and if i don't have each key already, use the healthy ones to repair my registry). The files may contain the answer, but I'm willing to bet on the registry, as it's more finicky.
Try using Portable Firefox:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
It's exactly like Firefox, only you can store it wherever, and your profile will work too.
Hopefully it'll be a solution while you can't figure out the reg... I'm running Windows 7 x86 here.
Do a clean reinstall and download a fresh Firefox copy from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all.html and save the file to the desktop. Uninstall your current Firefox version and remove the Firefox program folder before installing that copy of the Firefox installer. It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling. ..... See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Clean_reinstall