408410 - With 2 Firefox installs in different folders, only one can be removed safely

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Installer, enhancement)

Description

[u279076]

Firefox 3.0b2 RC1 on WinXP SP2 build ID 2007121120.

After installing Firefox to two different locations, there is only one instance of Firefox located in add/remove programs.  Choosing to uninstall from here results in the last copy of Firefox being removed.  The original install can only be removed manually.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install Firefox using "Standard" install
2. Run Firefox and close it
3. Install Firefox again using the "Custom" install
4. Ensure you use a different install location and a different start-menu folder
5. Run Firefox and close it

** Note: The standard install uses "Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 2" as the default folder/start-menu item.  For the custom install I just replaced "Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 2" with "Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 2 - 2007121120" for both the file-folder and start-menu folder. **

Actual Results:
Only one instance of Firefox exists in Add/Remove Programs

Expected Results:
There should be one entry for each instance of Firefox that is installed to a different location.

Upon further investigation, it appears that the registry key is just getting overwritten.  IMO, a new registry key should be created if the install location is different.

I will attach a screenshot of the key before and after the custom install to this bug.

Comment 1

[u279076]

Attachment: SCREENSHOT: Reg Keys

Comment 2

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

I can verify this behavior but I'm not sure if OSInt is the right component for that. It's an installer issue so why not using the appropriate component?

Robert, could it be that the installer overrides the already existing registry keys? We are using the same application id for the second Firefox version.

Comment 3

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

We only use the AppVersion to differentiate between different versions. That's why the second installations of the same Firefox version overwrites the values in the already existing directory:

http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsblame.cgi?file=/mozilla/browser/installer/windows/nsis/shared.nsh&rev=1.18&#426

Comment 4

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

We have always only supported installing one version of the application. Windows itself makes this difficult and the vast majority of applications only allow one installation... we have added code to try to workaround this primarilly for nightly users but there is no way to handle all of the cases with this one being minor in comparison. As far as I'm concerned this is wontfix but if someone wants to come up with a clean fix please do so.

As for uninstalling the version that no longer has any references to it in the registry all you have to do is delete its directory.