1. Always backup your Firefox 12 (or lower) folder.
2. Download the installer of a newer version of Firefox.
3. The installer will deliberately refuse to install on Windows XP SP1 and below with the error message, "Sorry, Firefox can't be installed. This version of Firefox requires Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or higher". To get around this, you need to add this entry to the Registry:
Code: Select all
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\Setup.exe]
"ApplicationGoo"=hex:56,00,00,00,52,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,01,00,00,00,4a,00,00,00,3c,fd,06,00,05,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,28,0a,00,00,\
02,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,53,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,69,00,63,00,65,\
00,20,00,50,00,61,00,63,00,6b,00,20,00,33,00,00,00,00
4. You can now run the Firefox installer.
5. In order to get Firefox working, you need to download the latest version of Known DLL Wrappers/Force Compatibility (KDW/FCWin2k) utility, unpack it and copy the customised uxtheme.dll file to your Firefox directory. Using the uxtheme.dll from a Windows XP installation will not work as it uses a bunch of dependencies that do not exist on Win2k.
6. Download and install the latest ENU version of the Unofficial Updates Rollup (UURollup).
7. Reboot your computer for the changes to take effect. This is very important as you will run into dependency problems when using some of the features working on Win2k.
8. After you reboot, you can now run the latest version of Firefox!
9. When you run the latest version of Firefox on Win2k, you MUST disable "Hardware Acceleration" in Tools > Options > Advanced > General. If you don't do this, you will likely see strange graphical glitches on the screen that will cause the browser to not work correctly. This is recommended prior to installing Firefox 13+ on Win2k.
10. In order to use Firefox automatic updates you should install this addon. For details please check information and cautions provided by xabolcs later in this topic. You can also install this addon in Firefox 12 and then let it update itself to the newest version available but you still must perform steps 5-7 or you will not be able to start Firefox after it has been updated.
That's about it for now. Additional detailed explanations is that you will need a unofficial kernel extension (such as BWC or WB) and the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 libraries to run applications compiled using Visual Studio 2010. The unofficial kernel and the libraries associated with it are included in the UURollup itself. Dependency problems that causes incompatibility issues on Win2k are also fixed in it.
Of course this applies only to the English version of Win2k. There are some ways to do the similar thing for other language versions but it is a little bit more complicated. I will try to provide detailed instructions later.
Be advised that by doing this, YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN. The workarounds that I provided above are NOT supported by Mozilla and you must USE THE NEWER SOFTWARE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
I want to thank ppgrainbow who helped write and improve the above instructions.