176001 - Installation instructions should alert user that profile data is not destroyed on upgrades

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: Installer, enhancement)

Description

[Wolfgang Sailer]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.78 [de] (WinNT; U)
Build Identifier: 

In the installation instructions it says to upgrade mozilla from an older 
verison first uninstall the old version with "control_panel.software". This 
process destroys the old profiles.

However, I uninstalled the english version of mozilla 1.1 and installed the 
german version of mozilla 1.1 after a reboot (just to be sure) under Windows XP 
then my settings for my mailaccounts were still there, all was correct.

This might be too careful a paragraph in the documentation. I think it affects 
all OS and mozilla version. Please correct it, because it might stop people who 
do not want to reconfigure everything again to try to upgrade.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Hm, good idea i think (have also seen this with other users) :-)

Comment 2

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

This only affects MacOSX, iirc, which insists on the user data and the app data
being stored in one directory.

Comment 3

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

No, I don't think so, because some people think if they deinstall Mozilla, also
the profile will be deleted, too (they dont know that the profile is stored in
another folder).

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Is this a bug about "profiles are destroyed" or "the text reads like they will
be destroyed"?  Those are two very different issues...

Comment 5

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

It's about "the text reads like they will be destroyed", the Reporter first
thought the profile will get destroyed, but it won't. So he thinks a remark in
the installer would be good that at de-installation the settings (Profile) will
not get deleted/destroyed.

Comment 6

[Grace Bush]

Is this the line that is the subject of this bug report?

'This process destroys the old profiles."

I cannot find this in installation instructions - where are you seeing it?

Mac and Linux do not have Uninstallers- users are on their own- 
Profiles are always stored separate from the app and will not be destroyed
unless user does it. User could install into profile directory/folder but they
would have to specify that- it is not a default in the installers.
Profiles are upgradable between versions of Mozilla

this should be invalid or changed to enhancement- with summary of 'Installation
instructions should alert user that profile data is not destroyed on upgrades'
Reporter, what are your thoughts?

Comment 7

[Wolfgang Sailer]

Hi, I am the reporter of the bug! With reference to the additional comment #6, 
there was a phrase in the installation instructions which misled me, and, 
according to comment #1 also other users. Reading through the installations 
instructions again now I also could not find the misleading phrase any more, the 
installation instructions may have been changed already. Therefore I think one 
could remove my report.

Perhaps it would be even worth adding a paragraph "Upgrade Instructions" in the 
"Installing on Windows" section of 
"http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.2b/" saying:
1) uninstall the old version of mozilla (technically this is not necessary, you 
can have more than one version of mozilla installed simultaneously) (if this is 
really true??)
2) install the new version following the notes above
NOTE: as mozilla saves the profile information to the windows %userprofile% 
directory which is not deleted upon uninstallation, your personal settings will 
be kept upon the upgrade.

Thank you all for your help!
Wolfgang

Comment 8

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

ok, changed
to the Release Notes:
I already wrote a email about that to jatin@nscp, but he didn't answer. I'm
giving my freedom to add him as CC to this bug.

Comment 9

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Jatin: Can you read Comment 5 and Comment 7 and change that for the release
notes :-)?

Comment 10

[B. Charles Reynolds]

It should be noted, pertinent to Comment 4 and Comment 6 that on MacOS X 10.2,
anyway, every time I have made an upgrade to Mozilla (even the jump from 1.2b to
1.2 stable), I have needed to create a new profile. This situation is so bad
that Mozilla fails to complete start up since 1.1 (freezes during first window
creation). This affects migration - ie: same problem, unable to migrate due to
this error. Since I cannot find a more apropriate bug already filed and this one
seems close, I figured that I'd report it here.

Upon creation of new profile, I attempt to migrate (read: manually copy) what
old files I can from old profile: bookmarks, mail data, etc. but I'd like to be
able to move my passwords data. While folks are looking into fixing this (I can
barely write "Hello World" in anything but Apple Basic), what is the name of the
file which stores Password Manager data?

Comment 11

[Andrew Schultz]

This has been fixed.  release notes logs include:

It is recommended that you uninstall previous versions of Mozilla before
installing Mozilla 1.1a. This will not delete your bookmarks, history, cookies
and other information which is stored in your profile directory.

fixed by:
1.20 <[e-mail]> 11 Jul 2003 23:03
remove redundent bug 58937 & bug 58339 entries
note that unistalling before install does not remove profile info

any issue with Mac profiles being deleted is another bug.