302700 - In (my !?) Windows registry, is |"GeckoVer"="$GreVersion$"| correct !?

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(SeaMonkey :: Installer, defect)

Description

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

[Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8b) Gecko/20050217] (<-- 1.8b1 !)
(W98SE)
[Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050729 SeaMonkey/1.0a]
(nightly) (W98SE)

I had a look at my Windows registry, and noticed the following:
{{
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla\Mozilla 1.7.10]
"GeckoVer"="1.0.1"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla\Mozilla 1.8b]
"GeckoVer"="$GreVersion$"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla\SeaMonkey 1.0a]
"GeckoVer"="$GreVersion$"
}}
and I wonder if |$GreVersion$| is intentional, or rather some kind of regression !?

(It doesn't seem to be any problem though.)

[Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050727] (<-- 1.7.11
!, -08 nightly) (W98SE)

PS: Now that I look at it again, I wonder about the |1.0.1| value for MASv1.7.11
too...

Comment 1

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

$GreVersion$ is a replacement variable that's obviously not gotten replaced.
1.0.1 really doesn't sound right, but that's what it's been since at least
Mozilla 1.7 through 1.8a5.

This is apparently something for plugin support, not used by Mozilla itself
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/plugins/install-scheme.html

Deer Park Alpha2 1.0+ has a GeckoVer of 1.7.5!

The equivalent install.cfg parsing was removed from the suite install build at
some point.

Comment 2

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> $GreVersion$ is a replacement variable that's obviously not gotten replaced.

Thanks for the confirmation.

> 1.0.1 really doesn't sound right, but that's what it's been since at least
> Mozilla 1.7 through 1.8a5.

I guess that it should be fixed/synchronized to the MAS(/GRE) release (which was
1.7.10 in the build I tested) ?
Or is the 1.0.1 value a wanted compatibility feature ??

> This is apparently something for plugin support, not used by Mozilla itself
> http://www.mozilla.org/projects/plugins/install-scheme.html

{{
To find the version of Gecko used (for plugin compatibility)

Applicable to CompuServe 7.0, Netscape 7.0 (Windows), and other AOL browsers
currently in beta only

4. Look at the GeckoVer string value found there, and ascertain its value, e.g.
under [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Mozilla\CompuServe 7.0] you will see
"GeckoVer"="0.9.4.2".  The GeckoVer string value deterimines what milestone of
Mozilla the browser is built against.  Additional Example: under
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Mozilla\Netscape 7.0] you will see
"GeckoVer"="1.0.0.0" .  The value 1.0.0.0 suggests that Netscape 7.0 is built
against Mozilla 1.0.
}}

> Deer Park Alpha2 1.0+ has a GeckoVer of 1.7.5!

I surmise this one should have 1.8b3 or 1.8b4 !?

> The equivalent install.cfg parsing was removed from the suite install build at
> some point.

Then, the SeaMonkey part of the question becomes:
should the variable replacement be fixed, or the code cleaned up as it's now
obsolete !?
In other words, is there any plugins which do/will use this now ?

Comment 3

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

You'd have to ask plugin-knowledgable folks. My guess is that if the registry
has claimed a GeckoVer of "1.0.1" since Mozilla 1.0.1 (Netscape 7.0) three years
ago and no one's noticed then it must not matter all that much.

On the other hand we don't know how many installers check for its existence (but
not the version itself) as a way to find Mozilla browsers to install into, so
simply removing it might have an unintended downside.

What you do probably depends on how much QA you've got to test installing lots
of windows plugins. If you're short on windows QA then I'd be conservative and
fix it--at least hardcode "1.0.1" :-) --rather than rip it out.

Comment 4

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

I don't know why it's writing the literal string for the bug starter, but on my system (and every system I've tested it on), it writes the value GREVersion found in installer.cfg like it's supposed to (for the current 1.8 branch, it's writing 1.7.5, but that's for another bug). Maybe trying to figure out why it's being written as the literal string on the bug submitter's system while it's being recognized as a variable for other users' systems is a better course of action instead of just hard coding the value.

Comment 5

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

[Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051215 SeaMonkey/1.0b] (nightly) (W98SE)

<seamonkey-1.0b.en-US.win32.installer__2005-12-15.exe> still show this bug on my (home) computer.

Just in case, I wonder if it could somehow be related to ("my") bug 308794 too.

I'll try and test (both) on a WinXP computer (at work).

Comment 6

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

[Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051215 SeaMonkey/1.0b] (nightly) (WXpProSp2)

<seamonkey-1.0b.en-US.win32.installer__2005-12-15.exe> shows this bug on my (work) computer too.

The key is created during install, and deleted during uninstall.

Comment 7

[Chris Thomas (CTho) [formerly [e-mail] [e-mail]]]

What are the consequences of this bug?

Comment 8

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

(In reply to comment #7)
> What are the consequences of this bug?

Unknown, maybe "none".

Comment 9

[Robert Kaiser]

no patch, no known consequences of the bug, so not critical for 1.0

Comment 10

[Robert Kaiser]

Old XPFE installer is dead now with the end of life for SeaMonkey 1.x, so this is not relevant any more in the SeaMonkey 2 world.