1391080 - always asked to set Firefox as default browser because unable to identify current version in list of identical icons

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Installer, defect, P3)

Description

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Firefox 55.0.(0|1|2) on Windows 8.1

When I launched Firefox 55, it always asked to become the default browser (expected that it asked the first time, because I keep the old versions and install the new ones into a new location). After I chose to set it as default browser, the system dialog in the screenshot pops up and asks me to set the default browser. The first item is to keep Firefox as the default browser (Firefox 54?), no idea what the other icons represent (55, Beta, 64 vs 32 bit?)

The "default browser" dialog in the preferences/options opens the dialog with the checkboxes for the protocols etc., and selecting all of them, applying them and closing and re-launching Firefox worked: No "default browser" prompt.

Comment 1

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Attachment: screenshot of default browser dialog

Comment 2

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

The values are added by the installer so moving

Comment 3

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

In the registry, there are several keys like this:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxHTML-98281445EDA241BC
The hash varies.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxHTML-98281445EDA241BC\shell\open\command and similar keys the paths to Firefox 53, 54, 55, beta and central.

The issue also manifests in several "Firefox" menu items in the "Open with" context menu of the Windows Explorer for a .htm(l) file.

Comment 4

[Molly Howell (she/her) (mostly inactive)]

Yeah, this is a problem. It used to be that you could only ever have one installation appear in the default browser list, but when we fixed that we didn't add a way to differentiate multiple installations. We should add a version number and architecture to those values.