Disabling bookmark import wizard

[Trippynet]

Hello,

I'm in the process of deploying Firefox to a lot of the PCs where I work. This is being done using the FrontMotion Firefox MSI and everything is being locked down via group policies. One thing I am having trouble getting rid of through is the "Import wizard" which pops up when the browser is launched. This is a particular problem as none of the users have fixed profiles.

The FrontMotion version of Firefox allows virtually all of the about:config entries to be changed globally via group policies. Is there any way of disabling the import wizard using this?

I've so far tried:

profile.allow_automigration = true
profile.confirm_automigration = false

(no change)

browser.bookmarks.added_static_root = true
browser.bookmarks.import_system_favourites = true and false

None of which have had any effect. I'd rather not have to resort to extracting files from JARs and manually editing them as I've got to roll the app out to nearly 100 PCs. Plus I don't fancy re-packaging everything or adding yet another transform. Unless there's no alternative of course.

Many thanks in advance,

Dave.

[Trippynet]

I'm assuming it's not easily possible then. Another option that would do would be a way to fool Firefox into thinking that the import wizard has already been run. I've had a look through profile folders but can't see how Firefox flags that the import wizard has been run. Anyone any ideas how it handles this?

Thanks,

Dave.

[PhilMoz]

Hi,

I have just come across the same problem. What I found was providing the profile folder structure was in-place, the Bookmark Import Wizard didn't appear. The minimum files required seem to be:

Folder structure of:
Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles\[randomname].default

Properly formatted profiles.ini file in:
Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini

You could use a logon script of some kind to add these to users' Application Data folders.

Hope this helps

Phil

[dakboy]

You gave up on an answer after a day? GIve it some time.

Or try a search here on the forums. There are a few people who have been working on tweaks to make deployment into a controlled environment (corporate, college, etc.) on other forums here.

Why do you need to disable this feature in the first place?

[Trippynet]

Thanks for the replies. Maybe I was a little impatient initially, sorry about that. I'd done some searches but most of the replies seemed to involve extracting files from one of the JAR files for Firefox and editing that. Which seemed a little overkill and inconvenient really.

To Phil: Thank's I'll give that a try. I've got no problem with creating a couple of folders so long as it surpresses the prompt.

To Dak, the problem is that the users do not have persistent profiles. Hence every single time they log on and launch Firefox, the same dialog appears even though there are no IE favourites to import. Thus I'd like to disable it so that Firefox just loads up straight away.

But thanks guys, I'll look into that and hopefully it'll do the trick.

[doc_relax]

Hi,
I´m having the same problem here (corporate use with non-persistent profile). Since V 1.5.0.2 even editing the browser.jar doesn´t seem to help anymore (xml-error on first startup). Can anyone help?

[max1million]

It appears that loading the Migration (Import) Wizard on first start is coded right into the binary Firefox.exe, it is run before the rest of the Browser if profiles.ini is missing (has't already been created). I came up with a few options, though there may be another way. Choose 1, not all.

If you make the proper directory stucture, and proper profiles.ini in ComputerUsers profile, it will skip the Migration Wizard (Import) on first start. Do for each computer user's logon name, and every logon if you keep deleting them between every logon.

Use a preconfigured shortcut, if you want only 1 profile in a shared folder place. In the Target you'd have something like this: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Firefox.exe" -Profile "C:\CommonProfile\FirefoxUsers", (on Window) the folder must exist. It will bypass the Import screen on startup, but keep it avilable in Browser and Bookmarks Manager. Put shorcut in AllUsers. so they all have it and use the same Profile.

Use a binary editor (I used Qview.exe) to zero out chrome://browser/content/migration/migration.xul chrome,dialog,modal,centerscreen,titlebar @mozilla.org/profile/migrator;1?app=browser&type= firefox phoenix firebird opera dogbert seamonkeyapprunner ie iexplore that is in Firefox.exe, will remove the migration screen on startup, but keep it avilable in Browser and Bookmarks Manager. Make setupup.exe out of Mozilla Firefox directory. Here a couple pics. Before and After.

Find \Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome\browser.jar and unzip it, find \content\browser\migration\migration.xul and edit line 11 replacing onload="MigrationWizard.init()" with document.documentElement.cancel();. Zip it back up into a .jar when your done. It will disble Migration (Import) completly. Make setupup.exe out of Mozilla Firefox directory.

Tryed them, but there is another possibility. Rename migration.xul (mentioned above) to migrateit.xul. Replace the with migration.xul with a do nothing. And edit all the rest of the files that call on it for importing (Migration) for the new name migrateit.xul, to keep Import functinality in Browser and Bookmarks Manager. Make setupup.exe out of Mozilla Firefox directory. I din't bother with this one.


Some extra links, not any special order:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Au ... g_settings
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox:2.0_Ins ... Deployment
http://ilias.ca/blog/2005/03/locking-mo ... tings.html
http://tln.lib.mi.us/~amutch/pro/phoenix/kiosk.htm
http://www.mozdevgroup.com/clients/bm/
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... ddfeca7ef0
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid= ... ed&tid=154
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=137335

[doc_relax]

Hi Max,
wow this is really a detailed answer! Surely something of this will work for me. Thanks a lot!

[max1million]

I think best choices for mass deployment is binary edit Firefox.exe to get rid of it just on first start, or edit onload= in migration.xul to disable import (migration) completely, unless someone got different idea. Automigration prefs don't seem to do anything.

[phelgerman]

Try creating a plain text file named override.ini and drop it into the Firefox program directory (you could use a batch file or login script to copy it from a central location for deployment). The file itself only needs to contain the following two lines of code using the text editor of your choice.

Code: Select all

[XRE]
EnableProfileMigrator=false

Related information:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=286557

Since the Bugzilla entry was a bit unclear, I ended up adding the file to both the default profile stuff (unpacked from en-US.xpi in my case) and to the program directory (unpacked from browser.xpi since I was hacking XUL files anyway for our deployment). I'm reasonably sure that it only needs to live in the program directory (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\override.ini on Windows machines). This worked for me deploying Firefox 1.5.0.3 on Win98 & WinXP workstations. Your mileage may vary, no animals were harmed, etc.

Cheers,
Paul

[mikewhitton]

Try creating a plain text file named override.ini and drop it into the Firefox program directory (you could use a batch file or login script to copy it from a central location for deployment). The file itself only needs to contain the following two lines of code using the text editor of your choice.

Code: Select all

[XRE]
EnableProfileMigrator=false

Related information:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=286557

Since the Bugzilla entry was a bit unclear, I ended up adding the file to both the default profile stuff (unpacked from en-US.xpi in my case) and to the program directory (unpacked from browser.xpi since I was hacking XUL files anyway for our deployment). I'm reasonably sure that it only needs to live in the program directory (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\override.ini on Windows machines). This worked for me deploying Firefox 1.5.0.3 on Win98 & WinXP workstations. Your mileage may vary, no animals were harmed, etc.

Cheers,
Paul

Thanks Paul, I have been trying to figure this out forever...

You just made my day

[RoniHo]

Thanks, Paul. This appears to be the piece of code that I also was looking for.