[Mozilla Enterprise] Firefox msi detection in SCCM

Fri Oct 25 11:29:28 UTC 2019

If it were a proper .msi and not .exe wrapper all those problems could 
go away. However I prefer .exe -wrapper that doesn't leave any trace of 
itself behind than something that pollutes computer with .msi reg 
entries and leaves them behind when user decides to uninstall program 
using helper.exe (or ARP that uses helper.exe instead of msiexec /x).

So for all the evils not leaving any trace of it being .msi is the 
lesser evil IMO.

Timo Pietilä

On 25.10.2019 13.24, Gage, John wrote:
> I'm with you on that, Will - I don't feel that this should be "expected behavior" or "by design" for the MSI binaries.  The allure of using MSIs is for classic win32 app consistency and convenience that "msiexec" brings for both installation and uninstallation by using the product code GUID.  At the moment, the uninstaller uses "helper.exe", so I assume that switching to "msiexec /x" would require some work to get it performing the same actions as what "helper.exe" does now.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Enterprise <enterprise-bounces at mozilla.org> On Behalf Of William Spratt
> Sent: Friday, October 25, 2019 6:13 AM
> To: enterprise at mozilla.org
> Subject: Re: [Mozilla Enterprise] Firefox msi detection in SCCM
> 
> EXTERNAL EMAIL
> 
> Thank for the quick response, Timo and John,
> 
> I've had .msi installers in the past that barely did more than populate the application name.  I'm assuming this aspect does something else, and populating the detection method is a side-effect... otherwise I fail to see the point.
> 
> To be honest, if I have to populate the setting manually, I might just go back to the .exe method.  Is there any benefit to using the .msi I'm not seeing?
> 
> Regards
> 
> Will
> 
> Will Spratt
> IT Science Support Specialist
> Tel:         01904 46 2631
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Enterprise <enterprise-bounces at mozilla.org> On Behalf Of Gage, John
> Sent: 25 October 2019 10:50
> To: enterprise at mozilla.org
> Subject: Re: [Mozilla Enterprise] Firefox msi detection in SCCM
> 
> Just adding confirmation to Timo's comments that using the MSI GUID will not work.
> -----
> Will, I use SCCM heavily, and for my Firefox ESR Application's "Detection Method", I use the following "Detection Rule" instead of the MSI GUID:
> 
> Setting Type: Registry
> Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
> Key: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Mozilla Firefox 68.2.0 ESR (x64 en-US)
> Value: DisplayVersion
> Data Type: String
> Radio Button selection: "This registry setting must exist on the target system to indicate presence of this application"
> 
> There are many other detection method variants that will work; just keep in mind that if Mozilla ever changes the reg key naming scheme to not include the version and/or lang, this detection method could break.  At that point you can just use the other radio button selection of "This registry setting must satisfy the following rule to indicate the presence of this application" and set the Operator to "Contains" and whatever the version is in the "Value" field.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Enterprise <enterprise-bounces at mozilla.org> On Behalf Of Timo Pietilä
> Sent: Friday, October 25, 2019 5:28 AM
> To: enterprise at mozilla.org
> Subject: Re: [Mozilla Enterprise] Firefox msi detection in SCCM
> 
> EXTERNAL EMAIL
> 
> AFAIK that is by design. That msi is exe-wrapper and after install there is no trace that it was installed using .msi. You can't uninstall it using msiexec /x {productcode} either.
> 
> You need to treat it like if it were installed using .exe.
> 
> Timo Pietilä
> 
> On 25.10.2019 11.52, William Spratt wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> So with the 68.2 ESR release, I thought I'd try pushing it out with
>> the new .msi installer.
>>
>> We use SCCM to push out Firefox, and this has worked fine with the
>> .exe versions, manually configuring SCCM  to check the file version of
>> "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" to verify the
>> install/update was successful. When we import the 68.2 .msi into SCCM,
>> it does handy things like automatically populate the install detection
>> method to check for {1294A4C5-9977-480F-9497-C0EA1E630130} in the msi
>> directory.  Unfortunately, while the Firefox .msi runs successfully,
>>    installing/updating to 68.2, it doesn't detect that reference in the
>> .msi directory.
>>
>> Has anyone else experienced this?  Should I log a bug report?
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Will
>>
>> **
>>
>> 	
>>
>> *Will Spratt*
>>
>> *IT Scientific Support Specialist*
>>
>> *Fera Science Ltd.***
>>
>> william.spratt at fera.co.uk <mailto:william.spratt at fera.co.uk>| Tel +44
>> (0)1904 46 2631 | Mob +44 (0)7810855621
>>
>> www.fera.co.uk <http://www.fera.co.uk/>| Twitter
>> <https://twitter.com/ferascience>| LinkedIn
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>> <http://www.youtube.com/user/FeraUK1>
>>
>>
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