190714 - GRE installation doesn't allow user provided folder/path

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Installer: GRE, defect)

Description

[Patrick]

I tell Mozilla to install in "d:\program files\mozilla" which it does, but for
some reason, the GRE installer doesn't respect the specified path and still
installs in "d:\program files\mozilla.org".

It DOES use the "d" drive though. Perhaps this behavior is by design (to share
the GRE) but it seems a bit strange. Shouldn't the GRE installer just create a
[registry] link to whatever directory it is installed in?

Comment 1

[Michael Lefevre]

confirming (on 2003012508/win2000).

this could be significant for some people.  well behaved apps allow install
locations to be configured.  if not, then I guess the convention is for the
stuff to go into program files\common files.  configurable would be nicer though...

Comment 2

[Jason Bassford]

I hadn't been aware of this misbehaviour until now.  If it's going to install
into a static location, the user shouldn't be asked at all.

Comment 3

[Michael Lefevre]

to be clear - the installer asks about the installation folder for mozilla, and
it does install mozilla into that location.  The GRE folder isn't asked for, and
the location is standard (as reporter says, it goes under wherever the program
files folder is set, it's not hardcoded)

Comment 4

[Sean Su]

The normal windows shared area is:
  [common files]\mozilla.org\GRE\1.3b

where [common files] is normally: c:\program files\common files
I think GRE should be installed in the [common files] area.

Adding [e-mail] to the cc: list to get his input on this.

Comment 5

[Michael Lefevre]

as I'm sure you appreciate, if it's going to make the move into the [common
files] folder, it would be good to do it for 1.3beta - the appearance of the
separate GRE is going to cause some confusion for milestone users, and having it
move again after the beta would make things even more confusing...

Comment 6

[Chak Nanga]

Please remember we're installing two things here:
[I'm repeating some of what's already been said for completeness sake]

1. The Mozilla browser and it's related files, using the Mozilla installer.
2. The GRE related files, using the (separate) GRE installer.

In Case 1:
----------
Mozilla installer gives the user an option to change the install location. It
installs Mozilla to the user specified location

In Case 2:
----------
The GRE installer is desgined in such a way that it can install the GRE to any
directory specified via it's command line. If nothing is specified on the
command line it installs to the default location - it goes under wherever the
program
files folder is set.
IMHO, We should just give the user a choice of the GRE install dir - involves
exposing the GRE installer UI(i think it's just a command line option which
enables this)
If not, i guess, installing to the "Common Files" is the way to go. If we're
going down the "Common Files" route we should first post that proposal to the
embedding newsgroup to get wider coverage...thanks

Comment 7

[Sean Su]

Chak, right now, the mozilla installer simply runs the GRE installer in an
automated mode without prompting the user for anything.  There is not an elegant
way to get the GRE to prompt the user where to install it in addition to
prompting where mozilla should go.

I will propose, installing GRE to the "Common Files" folder for in this
situation, to the embedding newsgroup to see if they object.

Comment 8

[Sean Su]

Attachment: patch v1.0

Comment 9

[Sander]

I wonder, I always install my Mozilla on a different physical drive than where
program files\common files\ is located. Does GRE being installed there by
default have any implications for speed? (The drive where I install mozilla is a
lot faster than the old c:\)
Wouldn't it be a better option to take the user-specified location for mozilla
itself, chop off the last directory, add a GRE\ subdirectory (so it'd become a
sibling to the mozilla install directory) and feed that to the GRE installer? Or
isn't there an elegant way to feed any parameters to the GRE installer
automatically either?

Comment 10

[Samir Gehani]

Comment on attachment 112772 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v1.0

r=sgehani assuming this has been tested for new installs as well as upgrades.

Comment 11

[Sean Su]

Comment on attachment 112772 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v1.0

removing sr=request for patch because patch has moved from here to bug 190862

Comment 12

[Sean Su]

Comment on attachment 112772 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v1.0

marking patch obsolete as well.  I've opened bug 190862 to deal with changing
the default GRE installation path to the Common Files folder.  Let's leave this
bug as it is: GRE installation doesn't allow user provided folder/path

Comment 13

[Sean Su]

this is not 1.3b blocking, however bug 190862 should be.

Comment 14

[Sebastian Späth]

*** Bug 190930 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

*** Bug 191381 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 16

[Charles Rosendahl]

I would not allow the user to specify where to install the GRE.  If you do allow
this, subsequent installs must disable the selection capability if the GRE
version is already installed, since there should not be two separate locations
of the same shared GRE.

Comment 17

[rr_mozilla]

While I do not know if it affects performance or features for Mozilla, I always
prefer that installations do not
put big things ('big thing' means greater than a few K bytes) in the c: drive
(or [progran files]) if I tell the installer to use a different drive letter. 
Here is why:
1) The C: drive is small on old windows 95/98 machines and every programmer
in the universe thinks they have the right to dump stuff there even when
the user says otherwise and even when it is not strictly necessary. The result
is heart ache for the machine owner. Why? - On older machines it is easier to
add drives than remake C: onto a larger spindle when space grows tight. Or, as
anothet example, some IBM laptops have a fixed c: partition size of 1G even
though the total size is advertised as 6 or 10 gigs overall (due to a stupid
architecture about power saving shutdown/restart). That partition fills up fast
once you starting adding beyond the original software shipped with the laptop.
And then when $TEMP% defaults there - well you get the picture, I think.
2) As a security precaution, in big networks, I try to keep as much as
possible OFF the C drive on all workstations in case installations go
crazy or corruption occurs during install. Especially true for beta and RC1
candidates of any company.
3) It gets difficult to back up the C drive if everything goes there.
Spreading things on many partitions makes it easier to dump each partition as
needed to CD.
4) The C; drive on older machines is often the original and therefore
S_L_O_W_E_R drive. So a faster, bigger drive is added to the box hoping the
newer apps will get the benefit.
5) It is hard to plan for installations when you don't know the real resources
required.

Please help us in the outside world by putting GRE back into where the user says
is the root of the install.

Is there no originality of design of [common files] for mozilla products so that
they DO NOT HAVE to be in windows directories. Isn't using windows directories
only a convention? Other program I've used find shared directories, where ever
they are, even if they are not in Windows 'official' or 'standard' directories.

In any case the installation should say that it is using other drives and which
drives so that we can know, for planning purposes, how and where our system
drive resources are being used. (and curse if the 'where' is a disappointment)

Comment 18

[Benjamin Smedberg]

*** Bug 227674 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 19

[WD]

*** Bug 247528 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 20

[crassius]

WFM just installed 1.7 and got GRE in proper place. Some kind soul here advised
I use "-greLocal" in the install string and it worked.

Comment 21

[timeless]

[e-mail]: that's not the samr thing as allowing users to specify a
gre path, suppose i want d:\gre\1.8, and e:\mozilla\1.8, -greLocal would almost
certainly dump the gre into e:\mozilla1.8 which is not what i want.

Comment 22

[crassius]

(In reply to comment #21)
> [e-mail]: that's not the samr thing as allowing users to specify a
> gre path, suppose i want d:\gre\1.8, and e:\mozilla\1.8, -greLocal would almost

True, it would be nice to be able to specify a location, but this is at least
reasonable. Before this, I was relocating by hand. Move your GRE directory to
where you want it, then change these 5 key values in the registry to match the
new location:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org\GRE\1.7_2004060810]
"GreHome"="D:\\Programs\\Mozilla\\GRE\\1.7_2004060810"
"GreComponentsDir"="D:\\Programs\\Mozilla\\GRE\\1.7_2004060810\\Components"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org\GRE\1.7_2004060810\Uninstall]
"Uninstall Log Folder"="D:\\Programs\\Mozilla\\GRE\\1.7_2004060810\\Uninstall"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org\GRE\1.7_2004060810\Main]
"Install Directory"="D:\\Programs\\Mozilla\\GRE\\1.7_2004060810\\"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org\GRE\1.7_2004060810\Installer]
"PathToExe"="D:\\Programs\\Mozilla\\GRE\\1.7_2004060810\\Setup GRE\\setup.exe"

Comment 23

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

The GRE installer is long dead