950608 - Improvements for registry installed extensions, to avoid uninstalling if addon install location is not available

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Add-Ons: General, defect)

Description

[Norbert]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:26.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/26.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20131205075310

Steps to reproduce:

I followed the advice given at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Adding_Extensions_using_the_Windows_Registry

Since I am willing to roll out thunderbird throughout the company I created a network share, where all addons for Mozilla products reside to have a centralized point for administering Thunderbird Addons.
I set the registry entries as stated under the above mentioned url.
Everything works fine so far but I run into issues when using this kind of centralized addon management for notebooks.


Actual results:

If a computer has no access to this network share (e.g. notebook, if using it outside the company), all centralized managed addons are uninstalled.


Expected results:

I would suggest to change the addon installation behaviour for thunderbird as followed:
When starting, Thunderbird should read the registry key mentioned in the article mentioned above.
All addons set through the registry entries should be installed in the local users profile (therefor all addon files have to be copied from the network share to the local filesystem). The addons that are installed through this function should get some additional flags, e.g. 'installedThroughRegistry' and 'timestampOfNetworkFolder'.
If Thunderbird is started, it should check the network share. If the share is not accessable, e.g. because a notebook is used outside the company, the locally installed addons should be used. Otherwise, if the network share is accessable, Thunderbird should compare the timestamp of all locally installed addons with flag 'installedThroughRegistry' with the folders change date on the network share. If Thunderbird detects an updated addon on the network share, it should update its locally installed addon accordingly bay copying the new files to the local profile. If the network share is accessable, Thunderbird should also compare all locally installed addons for which the flag "installedThroughRegistry" is set with all addons provided in the network share. If Thunderbird finds a locally installed addon that is not provided through the network share anymore (the addon folder is missing on the network share), it should uninstall the addon accordingly. If Thunderbird finds additional addons on the network share, all these new addons should be installed locally.

This would make it umuch easier for administrators to use Thunderbird in a company and to have a more or less vonvenient way of centralized administration

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I couldn't find other bug reports about this.
Perhaps mossop will know more - he last updated https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Mozilla/Adding_extensions_using_the_Windows_registry

Comment 2

[Matt]

The link no longer exists, does the ability to install via the registry still exist?

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Matt from comment #2)

The link no longer exists, does the ability to install via the registry still exist?

Comment 4

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen] [:📆][:🧩]]

No longer supported, confirmed here: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/questions-on-sideloading-alternatives/49245