Need workaround for another Firefox improvement.

dalchina said:

Having got tired of the oh-so-frequent updates of FF, I rather like the idea of adding group policy templates - and there's a lot of them.

Here's the result- a visible reminder:
Attachment 328482

How to Install and Use Firefox Group Policies in Windows

Thanks for the link @Callender !

Must be nice to have Windows 10 Pro.

Those of us on Windows 10 Home can't get past step #4.

Helps sometimes- cost me all of $40 or so for Win 8.1 Pro from MS back in the day... forward planning.. then buy barebones laptop... this one was a 2nd-hand ex-business Thinkpad with SSD and Win 10 Pro.. £200.

RickC said:

I'm still on FF 86.0.1 so only looked at what the toggler did in the registry (using Process Explorer) then removed the registry setting completely without restarting.

After the 'fun and games' you folks have been having... I think I'll stick with this version a little longer.

I note that since disabling the 'Mozilla Maintenance Service' I'm not getting the nags every hour or so to update now. Is this service not part of the jigsaw?

Toggler always works for me. You might be on to something. I forgot to mention that when upgrading Firefox I download the installer and run it choosing "Custom" install and opt not to install maintenance service. If I ever forget and accidentally install maintenance service then I uninstall it typically using Geek uninstaller (or Hibit uninstaller) either of which allows selective removal of "maintenance service"

Ghot said:

Must be nice to have Windows 10 Pro.

Those of us on Windows 10 Home can't get past step #4.

A group policy is just a template for gpedit.msc to tell it the registry keys and values to use. If you know what they are, then in Home you can apply them using Regedit.

The downloaded definitions of the Firefox group policies are in a pair of xml files with the extensions .admx and .adml. You can read these files in Notepad to see what the relevant registry changes are to disable updates.

Code:

============
FIREFOX.ADMX
============

    <policy name="DisableAppUpdate" class="Both" displayName="$(string.DisableAppUpdate)" explainText="$(string.DisableAppUpdate_Explain)" key="Software\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox" valueName="DisableAppUpdate">
      <parentCategory ref="firefox"/>
      <supportedOn ref="SUPPORTED_FF60"/>
      <enabledValue>
        <decimal value="1"/>
      </enabledValue>
      <disabledValue>
        <decimal value="0"/>
      </disabledValue>
    </policy>


============
FIREFOX.ADML
============

      <string id="DisableAppUpdate">Disable Update</string>
      <string id="DisableAppUpdate_Explain">If this policy is enabled, the browser does not receive updates.

If this policy is disabled or not configured, the browser receives updates.</string>

From that, you can manually add them in Regedit - which I have done, then exported to get this .reg file:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox]
"DisableAppUpdate"=dword:00000001

To re-enable updates just delete the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla

RickC said:

Many thanks for the link.


I hadn't realised it was so simple... it's just a single registry setting:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Disable/Enable Firefox Updates (from v63 and upwards): 1 = Disabled / 0 = Enabled

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox]
"DisableAppUpdate"=dword:00000001

That reg edit DID work. I'm thinking that updating to FF 88.0, erased that and the distribution folder.
I just tested each one separately... and they both work. And I KNOW I had them BOTH employed before the FF 88.0 manual update yesterday.

Bree said:

A group policy is just a template for gpedit.msc to tell it the registry keys and values to use. If you know what they are, then in Home you can apply them using Regedit.

The downloaded definitions of the Firefox group policies are in a pair of xml files with the extensions .admx and .adml. You can read these files in Notepad to see what the relevant registry changes are to disable updates.

Code:

============
FIREFOX.ADMX
============

    <policy name="DisableAppUpdate" class="Both" displayName="$(string.DisableAppUpdate)" explainText="$(string.DisableAppUpdate_Explain)" key="Software\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox" valueName="DisableAppUpdate">
      <parentCategory ref="firefox"/>
      <supportedOn ref="SUPPORTED_FF60"/>
      <enabledValue>
        <decimal value="1"/>
      </enabledValue>
      <disabledValue>
        <decimal value="0"/>
      </disabledValue>
    </policy>


============
FIREFOX.ADML
============

      <string id="DisableAppUpdate">Disable Update</string>
      <string id="DisableAppUpdate_Explain">If this policy is enabled, the browser does not receive updates.

If this policy is disabled or not configured, the browser receives updates.</string>

From that, you can manually add them in Regedit - which I have done, then exported to get this .reg file:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox]
"DisableAppUpdate"=dword:00000001

To re-enable updates just delete the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla

Yeah, @RickC, posted that yesterday. Well, the registry edit.

Ghot said:

Yeah, @RickC, posted that yesterday. Well, the registry edit.

Hadn't spotted that post from RickC


But now you know how to implement any of the other FF policies in Home by reading the templates. Works for the MS templates too (well, most of them - some are ignored in Home). 20H2 templates available here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/102157

Open the .msi download as an archive using 7-Zip to read the .admx files.

Ghot said:

That reg edit DID work. I'm thinking that updating to FF 88.0, erased that and the distribution folder. I just tested each one separately... and they both work. And I KNOW I had them BOTH employed before the FF 88.0 manual update yesterday.

With that sorted you could just manually update when a new version is available by downloading the setup .exe from here then install over the top of the currently installed version.

Latest Firefox released for Windows [2]

   Note

FTP Download Page:
(32-bit) Directory Listing: Directory Listing: /pub/firefox/releases/88.0/win32/en-US/
(64-bit)Directory Listing: Directory Listing: /pub/firefox/releases/88.0/win64/en-US/

Just noticed another "visual" change, the folder icon on the Download menu are now an outline rather than solid black.