Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

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Rick216
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Joined: April 27th, 2014, 12:44 am

Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by Rick216 »

I have Firefox 52.4 ESR (32-bit, which seems to work better on my Win 7 x-64 machine than the 64-bit ESR), and Mozilla Maintenance Service 53.0.3 (somehow...surprised it's not 52.4).

I have updates set to check only and let me decide whether to download. So I am thinking of uninstalling Mozilla Maintenance Service anyway (and, per forum advice, deleting the files maintenanceservice.exe and maintenanceservice_installer.exe). But I have a couple questions:

(1) Can uninstalling Mozilla Maintenance Service (via the standard Win 7 program-uninstall interface) possibly affect browser performance? Things are going really well with my current setup after bouts of sluggishness, so I don't want to do anything that might jeopardize it unnecessarily.

(2) Will Firefox simply reinstall Mozilla Maintenance Service when I update from 52.4 ESR to 52.5 ESR (or even at some earlier point??).

Thanks.
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Reflective
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Re: Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by Reflective »

I'm running ESR 52.4.0 as well, but the Moz maintenance service version I have installed is 52.2.1

Info on disabling it in this article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/wh ... ce-service
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dfoulkes
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Re: Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by dfoulkes »

(1) Can uninstalling Mozilla Maintenance Service (via the standard Win 7 program-uninstall interface) possibly affect browser performance? Things are going really well with my current setup after bouts of sluggishness, so I don't want to do anything that might jeopardize it unnecessarily.

(2) Will Firefox simply reinstall Mozilla Maintenance Service when I update from 52.4 ESR to 52.5 ESR (or even at some earlier point??).
Long ago and when that Maint... Svc. auto installed via one of the updates to Firefox ... I eventually uninstalled that Maint. product using the normal Win7 uninstalling process... no neg-issues surfaced in here when I removed it. As for Moz re-installing it... I believe it came with only that one update... could be wrong there... but it's never come back. Anyway... that's what has happened at this end.
As you can see she's (The CAT) always alert and on the prowl for Meoware !!
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the-edmeister
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Re: Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by the-edmeister »

I just delete the two .exe files that are associated with that Maintenance Service - as soon as I installed Firefox.


.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Mine has wandered off and I'm out looking for it.
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James
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Re: Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by James »

Rick216 wrote:I have Firefox 52.4 ESR (32-bit, which seems to work better on my Win 7 x-64 machine than the 64-bit ESR), and Mozilla Maintenance Service 53.0.3 (somehow...surprised it's not 52.4).
The Mozilla Maintenance Service is from when you installed Firefox as it does not get updated when you do internal Firefox updates.
Rick216
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Joined: April 27th, 2014, 12:44 am

Re: Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by Rick216 »

Thanks for the helpful input from all. A couple followup questions:
the-edmeister wrote:I just delete the two .exe files that are associated with that Maintenance Service - as soon as I installed Firefox.
Just to make sure I understand, you do this to keep MMS from running, but do *not* specifically uninstall it, correct?
James wrote:The Mozilla Maintenance Service is from when you installed Firefox as it does not get updated when you do internal Firefox updates.
Just to be sure I understand, by "internal" do you mean run either via automatic updates or "Help/About" (as opposed to a separate install file)?
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therube
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Re: Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by therube »

Does the "Maintenance Service" actually create/run a Windows service?
If so, I would think you'd want to actually uninstall the "Maintenance Service" (which you would expect to end the service too), rather then simply deleting a couple .exe's (& potentially leaving the service running, even if it would be of little or no consequence).

(Better yet, don't even install the service to begin with. Isn't that an option during the install?)
Fire 750, bring back 250.
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TheVisitor
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Re: Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by TheVisitor »

MozillaMaintenance Service is installed when you do you a manual install. The service can and does 'Update in Background' Firefox sometimes overriding your choice in settings of 'Never Update'.

To prevent its install use the 'Custom Install' when Installing and uncheck 'Install Maintenance Service'.
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the-edmeister
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Re: Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by the-edmeister »

Rick216 wrote:Thanks for the helpful input from all. A couple followup questions:
the-edmeister wrote:I just delete the two .exe files that are associated with that Maintenance Service - as soon as I installed Firefox.
Just to make sure I understand, you do this to keep MMS from running, but do *not* specifically uninstall it, correct?
...
Yes - I don't uninstall MMS.

The specific reason is that I have many different versions of Firefox installed (each with their own Profile or Profiles). My thought is that only one would get removed by the uninstaller procedure - the "default installation" as recognized via the Windows Registry; while the others "lie in wait" to do an unwanted update. I believe that Mozilla can use MMS to "force" an update and override the user settings to never check for an update. Two or three "surprises" was enough for me to go thru my Firefox Program Files and delete that insidious garbage to remove the element of surprise.

Also, in recent years I have been setting a null value for app.update.url - IOW deleting the URL for the Mozilla update server.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Mine has wandered off and I'm out looking for it.
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the-edmeister
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Re: Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by the-edmeister »

therube wrote:Does the "Maintenance Service" actually create/run a Windows service?
If so, I would think you'd want to actually uninstall the "Maintenance Service" (which you would expect to end the service too), rather then simply deleting a couple .exe's (& potentially leaving the service running, even if it would be of little or no consequence).

(Better yet, don't even install the service to begin with. Isn't that an option during the install?)
One of those .exe's is the installer for MMS and the other is the .exe that runs the service - it can't run if it ain't there. I have no idea whether it's a "Windows service" or not; don't care, just don't want is sitting on the hard drive "lying in wait" to do its thing unexpectedly. Yes, MMS can be "uninstalled", but its a POS that shouldn't have ever been instituted to begin with.

I have no idea if there is an option to NOT install MMS or not. I can't recall the last time that I actually installed a new version of Firefox; see my UA that I use for Firefox forums "work". Plus, the few "new installs" that I have done in the last 4 or 5 years have been via a "zip build" extraction procedure that I use. I download the "off-line" installer package and extract the files by opening the /core/ folder and extracting the contents to a new Firefox program files folder. Then I delete the 2 MMS .exe files, make a desktop shortcut to firefox.exe, and insert a custom user.js file that I edit a bit for each new Profile. Once I get the desktop shortcut "Path to" setup to an existing Profile or to create a new Profile, than I do a "first run" of that new installation. And other than what I call a "default installation" I rarely have the Profile located in the default location; most are on my D:/ drive with the cache on the E:/ drive (pref set in the user.js file for each Profile). The E:/ drive is small and can be defragged quickly; almost eliminating the need to defrag the C:/ drive.

The main reason that do the "extract install" is to not mess with the Registry and avoid screwing up the "default browser" setting. The "last installed Firefox" as the default got old real fast years ago, so I avoid it getting changed with every new Firefox installation that I may do.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Mine has wandered off and I'm out looking for it.
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therube
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Re: Mozilla Maintenance Service Questions

Post by therube »

I download the "off-line" installer package and extract the files by opening the /core/ folder and extracting the contents to a new Firefox program files folder.
Ditto, though I use a batch file, UNSEA.BAT.
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p14187803
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p11019137
(In my case, I mainly extract SeaMonkey installers, but the same works just as well for FF installers. [Simply change: 777 x firefox*.exe.])
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
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