236399 - (nt3.51) fails to install under NT 3.51 / Citrix WinFrame 1.8

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Firefox :: Installer, defect)

Description

[ed sternin]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.7 [en] (WinNT; U)
Build Identifier: firefox 0.8

"Error occurred during installation - Cross Platform COM: -322 INIT_STUB_ERROR"

and the installer hangs and needs to be killed after "OK" is clicked and the 
above dialog goes away.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[ed sternin]

Start Log: 03/03/04 - 5:37:50 PM
    System Info:
        OS Type: NT3
        Major Version: 3
        Minor Version: 51
        Build Number: 1057
        Extra String: Service Pack 5C
        Total Physical Memory: 261468KB
        Total Available Physical Memory: 141828KB

    Product Info:
        Install mode: Normal
        Company name: mozilla.org
        Product name (external): Mozilla Firefox
        Product name (internal): Mozilla Firefox
        Uninstall Filename: UninstallFirefox.exe
        UserAgent: 0.8. (en)
        Alternate search path: 

    Components corrupted (startup):
        none
S�•ίSΪπ†Ο§ΐG•&v\y
@ήπ	Χ|πγ£M@3
    Destination Path:
        Main: \Mozilla Firefox
        SubPath: 

    Setup Type: &Custom

    Components selected:
        Cross Platform COM
        Mozilla Firefox Browser
        mozilla.org Uninstaller
        US English Defaults
        English (US) Language Pack
        US Region Pack

    Components to download:
        Cross Platform COM found: L:\temp\9b\ns_temp\
        Mozilla Firefox Browser found: L:\temp\9b\ns_temp\
        mozilla.org Uninstaller found: L:\temp\9b\ns_temp\
        US English Defaults found: L:\temp\9b\ns_temp\
        English (US) Language Pack found: L:\temp\9b\ns_temp\
        US Region Pack found: L:\temp\9b\ns_temp\
        **
        ** All components have been found locally.  No components will be 
downloaded.
        **


    Uncompressing Xpcom Succeeded: 0

    XPInstall Start
        Cross Platform COM: -322 INIT_STUB_ERROR
    XPInstall End

Comment 2

[Ali Ebrahim]

Sorry, we don't support Windows NT 3.51. Please see the Firefox system
requirements here:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/system-requirements.html

Comment 3

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Verified using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7b)
Gecko/20040302 Firefox/0.8.0+

Comment 4

[timeless]

what kind of verification is that?

reporter: not that this is relevant, but does this happen with the seamonkey
installer?

Comment 5

[ed sternin]

The system requirements used to say "Windows NT"; they now say "Windows NT 4.0",
so the bug is moot: there is now no declared NT compatibility in version 3.51.

I had hoped that the bug was that of the INSTALLER software, and not the mozilla 
itself; and I was hoping for an alternate install mechanism.

Windows NT 3.51 is the LAST Micro$haft operating system that was licensed for 
simultaneous users, and thus the last that did not have a built-in annual 
Micro$haft "tax".  With a Citrix Winframe on top, it works very well to support 
large numbers of thin-client logins.  I am disappointed that Mozilla chose not 
to support this model.

Netscape 4.78 works well in this environment.

Re: seamonkey - what is it?  could you provide a pointer?

Comment 6

[ed sternin]

I did now try:

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.6/mozilla-win32-
1.6.zip

when installed into \Program Files\Mozilla,
mozilla.exe valiantly puts up the splash screen, and then crashes out with eight
identical errors: 

"The ordinal 77 could not be located in the dynamic link library OLEAUT32.dll"

I guess, back-porting to NT 3.51 is out of the question...

Comment 7

[Ali Ebrahim]

If you can't use the installer, but still want to try Firefox 0.8 and see if it
works on NT 3.51, try downloading the zip archive and using that instead:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/0.8/Firefox-0.8.zip
(make sure you extract into a clean directory)

Alternatively, you may wish to try an older release of Firefox, in which NT 3.51
may be supported:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firebird/releases/ (previous versions)
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/phoenix/releases/ (even older versions)

Remember to delete your profile before switching from one version to another,
and make sure to always extract into an empty directory. Don't overwrite the
files of another install.

Does anyone remember in which release cycle we dropped support for NT 3.51?

Comment 8

[ed sternin]

I went through the older releases.

The last one to "work" is phoenix 0.5.

DLL exceptions starting with firebird 0.6

"work" is only an approximation for all phoenix 0.1 - 0.5 versions: menu and 
dialog font is missing? wrong font metric? so all dialogs are blank, all menus 
are long skinny vertical sticks (zero width?)

The usual Windo$e ctl-V pasting into the location window does not work.

Tested one plugin (techexplorer), works fine, including the fonts of **its** 
dialogs.

The profiles seem to be created in one common directory, not appropriate for a 
multi-user environment, but perhaps I did not get enough functionality to work 
to be able to change this.

Am I beating a dead horse?  I was hoping to UPgrade the browser technology, even 
though the underlying OS is old, but this feels like a major DOWNgrade from 
Netscape 4.78.

What is the consensus of the gurus, is this worth pursuing? 

Comment 9

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Ed, I think that some people would be willing to get Mozilla running on NT 3.51. 
The problem is/will be that most people don't have a NT 3.51 installation at
hand to test things. I don't think that this situation will improve.

Comment 10

[ed sternin]

I have a WinFrame 1.8 (NT 3.51 - based) installation, and I would be willing to
create account(s) for anyone willing to do testing/porting.

I have no compiler tools on it at the moment.

It can be accessed from anywhere in the world through an ICA client, or NCD
xremote, or an rsh/X11 connection; of course things will be a bit slow when
bitmaps are involved...

Comment 11

[[e-mail]]

Right, I've heard about the font metrics, because someone tried to run old
versions under NT3.51 before, with the same issue. At the time he posted the
following workaround, see http://toastytech.com/guis/misc5.html

Comment 12

[[e-mail]]

Hmmm... does dependency walker run under nt3.51?

Comment 13

[ed sternin]

Yes, I did find  
  http://toastytech.com/guis/misc5.html
just before you pointed it out :-) but it made no difference.
The directory, as distributed, contained
  userChrome-example.css
  userContent-example.css
So it is is possible that another file, userContent.css is needed.

However, another piece of advice (re newshell) on the same page
lead to such disastrous consequences that I had to re-instal OS from
scratch (!) which is what I spent my week-end on...  so I am not too keen
on trying any more of those suggestions.

Can somebody confirm that the last phoenix:
  (1) is the best we can do for 3.51 ?
  (2) has a font metric problem that has a known solution?

I am responsible for a lot of traffic here, and I thank all that offer advice.
Should this bug remain "VERIFIED INVALID" ?  I am not too sure of the rules of
behaviour here...

Comment 14

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to comment #13)
>Can somebody confirm that the last phoenix:
>  (1) is the best we can do for 3.51 ?
It depends on whether the cause is Mozilla-specific or Firefox-specific
(although most of Firefox is based on Mozilla there are a few differences.) If
it's Firefox-specific then I doubt you'll be able to make a case for
compatibility but if it can be solved in Mozilla then you have a better chance.
>  (2) has a font metric problem that has a known solution?
I could make a guess at a solution but without an NT3.51 build environment it
would be hard to test...

Comment 15

[[e-mail]]

The font metrics fix is bug 289217.