1804113 - stop implicitly pinning to taskbar on windows 8/10/11

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Installer, defect)

Description

mkaply sent me a report from a user that claimed Firefox was pinning itself to the Windows taskbar while it was not running. I suspect what's happening here is that we're hitting this line of code while running updates -- which always pins to taskbar for Windows 8 and up. This code has been around for quite awhile, but until bug 1771951 was fixed it would not have done anything on Windows 10 & 11.

We ought to remove this, as we've certainly decided at this point that pinning without explicit user consent is a no-go.

(I'm not actually certain this will fix the reported issue, but it sure seems likely.)

Comment 1

[Robin Steuber (she/her) [:bytesized]]

I'm going to call potentially doing something that definitely requires user consent without having user consent an S2 for now. If this isn't as serious as it sounds, we can revisit that. But it sounds to me like we should fix this quickly.

Comment 2

[[e-mail] (:bhearsum)]

(In reply to Kirk Steuber (he/him) [:bytesized] from comment #1)

I'm going to call potentially doing something that definitely requires user consent without having user consent an S2 for now. If this isn't as serious as it sounds, we can revisit that. But it sounds to me like we should fix this quickly.

Oh yes -- I meant to assign this to myself. It's a simple fix.

Comment 3

[[e-mail] (:bhearsum)]

Attachment: Bug 1804113: stop implicitly pinning to taskbar r?bytesized!

Two parts here:

1. Remove the code that does implicit pinning entirely (this will disable it on Windows 7 as well, which I think is probably the right thing to do at this point).
2. Fix the installer to set a proper default for AddTaskbarSC

Comment 4

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/e5e6e597bf4e
stop implicitly pinning to taskbar r=bytesized

Comment 5

[Sandor Molnar[:smolnar]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/e5e6e597bf4e

Comment 6

[Daniel Bodea [:danibodea]]

I would like to attempt verification of this fix, but I don't know how to reproduce it. Having a Release v100.0 update in the background does not pin itself to the taskbar in Windows 10. I've never observed it pin itself other than by using the stub installer.

Do we have any information on how this might have happened?

Comment 7

[[e-mail] (:bhearsum)]

(In reply to Bodea Daniel [:danibodea] from comment #6)

I would like to attempt verification of this fix, but I don't know how to reproduce it. Having a Release v100.0 update in the background does not pin itself to the taskbar in Windows 10. I've never observed it pin itself other than by using the stub installer.

Do we have any information on how this might have happened?

This only ever happens once per install location, so if you're not doing this on a clean system I'm not surprised. I would expect that you could reproduce it if you install to a place you never have before, or clear out old keys from HKCU\Software\Mozilla\Firefox\Installer in the registry.

Comment 8

[Daniel Bodea [:danibodea]]

I have reattempted reproduction after cleaning up everything Mozilla related from Registry Editor (especially in HKEY_CURRENT_USER), deleting all profiles, uninstalling all Fx browsers, making sure no firefox tasks are found in the task scheduler and also installing it in a drive where it has never been installed in. After the background update from v100.0 to v108.0.2, it did not pin itself to the taskbar.

I have also performed these steps for installations of v102.0, 104.0, 104.0b9 and 106.0 and it did not reproduce. The background update task was run manually, the update was performed, but the Firefox icon never pinned itself to the taskbar. All tests were done in Windows 10.

I will attempt to find someone with a Windows 8 or 11 to test it and a second Windows 10 to retest.

Is there anything we might be missing from the assumed steps to reproduce?
Have you been able to reproduce it? (If yes, which OS? Which initial version? Which channel?)
Assuming this might not have been the case (that Fx would actually have pinned itself to taskbar while background update) Do you think we should spend any more time trying to reproduce it?

Thanks!

Comment 9

[[e-mail] (:bhearsum)]

(In reply to Bodea Daniel [:danibodea] from comment #8)

I have reattempted reproduction after cleaning up everything Mozilla related from Registry Editor (especially in HKEY_CURRENT_USER), deleting all profiles, uninstalling all Fx browsers, making sure no firefox tasks are found in the task scheduler and also installing it in a drive where it has never been installed in. After the background update from v100.0 to v108.0.2, it did not pin itself to the taskbar.

I have also performed these steps for installations of v102.0, 104.0, 104.0b9 and 106.0 and it did not reproduce. The background update task was run manually, the update was performed, but the Firefox icon never pinned itself to the taskbar. All tests were done in Windows 10.

I will attempt to find someone with a Windows 8 or 11 to test it and a second Windows 10 to retest.

Is there anything we might be missing from the assumed steps to reproduce?
Have you been able to reproduce it? (If yes, which OS? Which initial version? Which channel?)
Assuming this might not have been the case (that Fx would actually have pinned itself to taskbar while background update) Do you think we should spend any more time trying to reproduce it?

Thanks!

I was able to reproduce it on Windows 10 when I was verifying this patch. I don't think it's worth trying to verify further though.