auto-updating firefox on windows deployments

[Robin Paulson]

the company i work at has a mixture of windows xp and 7 workstations.
i would like to use firefox on these workstations, but don't want to
manually update each of them every time mozilla puts out a 0.0.n
update

there is functionality within firefox to auto-check and update the
install, but it requires admin privileges, which i'm not giving to
everyone in the company

does anyone have any ideas on how i might do this, en masse. some
updater which runs with system privileges at boot-time perhaps?

cheers

[Nevyn]

Post by Robin Paulson
the company i work at has a mixture of windows xp and 7 workstations.
i would like to use firefox on these workstations, but don't want to
manually update each of them every time mozilla puts out a 0.0.n
update
there is functionality within firefox to auto-check and update the
install, but it requires admin privileges, which i'm not giving to
everyone in the company
does anyone have any ideas on how i might do this, en masse. some
updater which runs with system privileges at boot-time perhaps?
cheers
--
robin

This sounds like one of those "left testicle for cron" sort of
scenarios. Windows does have similar functionality right? A scheduler
or something which can run applications under different user
accounts... In which case, if you can find or come up with a script
that will check the server for an updated version. If an updated
version is found, download and install (probably has to be interactive
given Windows handling of locked files).

Regards,
Nevyn
http://nevsramblings.blogspot.com/

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[Robin Paulson]

Post by Nevyn
This sounds like one of those "left testicle for cron" sort of
scenarios. Windows does have similar functionality right? A scheduler

there is a scheduler, it's poor, and i don't want to use that

there is the concept of services, which is somewhat similar - all
services run at boot, under a specified user

Post by Nevyn
or something which can run applications under different user
accounts... In which case, if you can find or come up with a script

this bit's easy - there is a command-line 'updater.exe' application
included with firefox. running it at the right time and with the right
privileges is the issue

[Michael Adams]

Post by Robin Paulson

Post by Nevyn
This sounds like one of those "left testicle for cron" sort of
scenarios. Windows does have similar functionality right? A scheduler

there is a scheduler, it's poor, and i don't want to use that

I wouldn't dismiss it so lightly. I use it to shutdown each computer at the
end of each day, using shutdown.exe, after the virus checker and incremental
backups have run.

Post by Robin Paulson
there is the concept of services, which is somewhat similar - all
services run at boot, under a specified user

Post by Nevyn
or something which can run applications under different user
accounts... In which case, if you can find or come up with a script

this bit's easy - there is a command-line 'updater.exe' application
included with firefox. running it at the right time and with the right
privileges is the issue

There you go, schedule it for 22.00 +/- weekly.

Alternatively you could download it manually *once* to a specific network
share folder and just get each computer to check the share for new verions
from a batch file. Download once and distribute sound better than download
for each machine separately. This could be done from a batch filename
comparison. I am not writing it for you while on sitting here on linux.

HTH

[Cliff Pratt]

Post by Michael Adams

Post by Robin Paulson

Post by Nevyn
This sounds like one of those "left testicle for cron" sort of
scenarios. Windows does have similar functionality right? A
scheduler

there is a scheduler, it's poor, and i don't want to use that

I wouldn't dismiss it so lightly. I use it to shutdown each computer
at the end of each day, using shutdown.exe, after the virus checker
and incremental backups have run.

I'd say that the Windows scheduler is idiosyncratic, not poor. Once set
up it run for ever without being touched. I also use 'at' on Windows. If
you want to use a cron thing on Windows there is 'VisualCron' which we
were going to use at one time.

Cheers,

Cliff

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[Robin Sheat]

Post by Robin Paulson
there is functionality within firefox to auto-check and update the
install, but it requires admin privileges, which i'm not giving to
everyone in the company

I think there is a 3rd-party set of MSI packages that can be used for
this purpose. I've never used them or anything though.

Robin.


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[Mark Foster]

Post by Robin Sheat

Post by Robin Paulson
there is functionality within firefox to auto-check and update the
install, but it requires admin privileges, which i'm not giving to
everyone in the company

I think there is a 3rd-party set of MSI packages that can be used for
this purpose. I've never used them or anything though.

Im no expert... but initial thoughts:

- I understood that MSIs could be rigged to be usable by folks who dont
have admin privs
- check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Installer under
'Advertisement'
- Commercial packages such as 'SMS' function to allow centralised
application management for tools not supplied by windows and covered by
windowsupdate/wsus. Got $?



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[Craig Box]

Post by Robin Sheat
I think there is a 3rd-party set of MSI packages that can be used for
this purpose. I've never used them or anything though.

Used 'em years ago. They're great. http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/.

They also have a "FrontMotion Firefox Community Edition" — so named as it
has been changed more than you can and still call it "Mozilla Firefox" —
which lets you control Firefox with group policy.

Craig
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