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Rolling Out Mozilla in an Organization?
jdclucidly asks: "I am a network administrator for a small non-profit (about 50 employees). I would like to roll Mozilla 1.2.1 out to all of our desktops. We don't have a single ghost image because the computers on site are too varied. Yes, I did my Googling. The source for the installer is just huge and mind boggling. Is there something like a Mozilla Administration Kit that will generate custom Mozilla installers? If not, would people on Slashdot be interested in starting a new project to make such a kit?" If you were going to deploy a "branded" version of Mozilla, company-wide, how would you do it, especially if you had to worry about a mixed OS environment?
I installed Mozilla on my machine using the stub installer and had it save all of the .XPI components to a folder. I went in and extracted the .XPI's and examined them. It seems possible to do these things but not without learning XUL, JavaScript, XML and Mozilla.org's own stuffings -- not to mention setting up a Visual C++/Cygwin compiling farm for every next Mozilla release. Can I:
"Here's what I want to do:
- Install everything but Quality Feedback Agent
- Set Mozilla as the default browser
- Disable 'Open Unrequested Windows' (kill pop-ups)
- Install Elveraldo's Crystal-Classic theme as default
- Set Google as the default search engine
- Set 'Georgia' as the default Serif font for Western and Unicode
- Enable HTTP Pipelining
- Enable FIPS internal cryptography
- Set toolbar to 'Pictures only'
- Set Home Page to my organization's intranet site
- Set start page to 'Blank page'
- Disable 'Hide the tab bar'
- Enable Middle-click for new tab
- Enable control+enter for new tab
- Default downloads to 'open a progress dialog'
- Disable Javascript and Plugins for Mail & News
- Enable quicklaunch
- Create an additional shortcut on the desktop and in quicklaunch that uses chrome/icons/mailnew.ico as it's source and points to 'mozilla.exe -mail'
I installed Mozilla on my machine using the stub installer and had it save all of the .XPI components to a folder. I went in and extracted the .XPI's and examined them. It seems possible to do these things but not without learning XUL, JavaScript, XML and Mozilla.org's own stuffings -- not to mention setting up a Visual C++/Cygwin compiling farm for every next Mozilla release. Can I:
- Directly modify the defaults/prefs/all.js file to incorporate my preference defaults above and then recompress the .XPI?
- Add to the installer Crystal-Classic.jar somehow? Where are those changes made?
- Make the installer NOT allow the user to change any of this?
- Make the installer create the above mentioned shortcut?"
just copy the directory, mozilla doesn't need registry entries.. it stores all its settings in some whacky xml files
IMHO of course.
transmission_err
I recommend Automate. It would get the job done and can be deployed over a network. Although it'll only work on windows machines. Alternatively a cheaper solution would be to copy over all the mozilla files and registry settings to each machine.
everyone is always praising phoenix, however, on my machine it uses more RAM (about 26MB compared to 20 for mozilla) it isn't noticably faster, and there isn't an option to ctrl+enter in the location bar to open a new tab, ctrl+enter in phoenix does the same as in IE (adds http://www. to the front and .com to the end of whatever is in the location bar) which is a nice shortcut, but I'm too addicted to ctrl+enter creating a new tab, so phoenix's usability suffers for me, and I don't get alot of speed increases anyway...
This is 100% the wrong way to go about things, bud. What you want to do is use something like Microsoft Systems Management Server, Veritas WinInstall, or Novell ZenWorks SnAPPShot to monitor the install on your install test-bed PC (you DO have one, don't you?), make all those oodles of changes you want to, then redistribute it identically to your clients. If you don't have these, I would buy one of the packages -- the money you spend will save you $$$ in man-hours trying to come up with a hackneyed, crappy homebrew solution in the long run. Once you start using these distribution apps, they will become your next best friend.
Make one install on your PC. Setup all of the preferences how you want them.
Copy the .mozilla directory (or whatever) to wherever you plan on installing this from. chmod a-w on it for *nix users, set permissions accordingly on it for Windows.
Put your .jar theme where it needs to be
Install on everyone else's PCs and just copy the preferences folder via a script or by hand.
Profit!
It such a small number of people, it should be painless to do it by hand anyways.
Just prohibit the use of Mozilla in your organization and then make sure employees have access to the Internet. They're bound to set it up themselves that way.
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First of all, Mozilla doesn't understand UNC paths. If your GPO redirects %appdata%, you're screwed. Quit now. The mozilla registry.dat file goes in %appdata%\mozilla and if %appdata% is in a UNC of DFS share, it won't find it.
Then ... if you allow users to create profiles in the default location, below %appdata%\mozilla, expect profiles to go missing. Windows has a nasty habit of duplicating roaming profiles, like profiles\user, profiles\user.domain, profiles\user.domain.000, etc... Since your profile location is a hardcoded path in registry.dat, Mozilla will find it, but will try to load the profile in the stale profile location. If that doesn't exist now, it'll throw up a profile manager asking you to recreate one.
The solution to above is to create the profile manually via a command like:
That will move the bulk of the profile (except registry.dat) to a fixed location out of the roaming profile.
For a lot more detail and my rant, read bug #162025, comment #28.
We have done a lot to get it working finally, including some logon vbscripts to create the profiles, repair prefs.js file, have some mandatory prefs.js entries that are replaced during logon if user changes them (like home page for us), etc...
We've been through hell but think we finally have it licked by working around mozilla bugs. We intend to post a page on our experiences, but not in the next 12 hours (the effective life of a slashdot story)
When it's ready, I'll e-mail you or feel free to contact me if you want the scripts as they stand now (we are still debugging some things).
Guy asks for info on how to *autoinstall* Mozilla on 50 machines. Somebody replies saying use Phoenix instead, *without* giving any input on autoinstalling. Is it that obvious how to autoinstall Phoenix?
Ah, I used to do something similar at the Department of Networking Services & Information Technologies, at the University of Chicago, were I used to work. Setup up webkiosks and the like for the campus.
Your probably already know this, but I'll point out the obvious:
1. Set up a Ghost server for yourself. Maybe even look at a copy of Alteris LabExpert.
2. Backup often.
3. Set yourself a timeline with mile markers. Give yourself a few months, so you don't pull out your hair or have a mental break down. Plan a reasonable project timeline, such as 3 months.
4. Set up testing workstations. Get all of your networking issues out of the way before you start on Mozilla. TCP/IP or other protocol stacks should already be installed. All device drivers should already be installed.
5. Take the list which you've already made, and make the changes to the box. When you get the change to work, backup the box with your image server. Keep detailed notes of what you've just accomplished.
6. Repeat step 5 until all items are completed.
7. When step 6 is completed, backup the workstation, diff the image if needed, and push it onto workstations of similar hardware configuration. Either package the image as an application (tar, zip), an application image (ZenWorks, Active Directory resource, Ghost, etc), or an operating system image (SMS, Alteris, Ghost).
Once you get into the groove of the project, it'll go quickly.
Sorry for stating the obvious, but you're talking about a fairly complex network engineering task. Don't expect it to happen next week or even next month. Just make sure you have an imaging server and that you take good notes, and the project will go fine.
First install mozilla on one machine. Then obtain the source, find where the signal handler(i think that is what it is called) for the meny ithem edit->preferences is set and comment that out, compile. Now you should have a version of mozilla that the user cannot configure.
Use the first installation(full version) to generate all the files that contain the settings you want for each machine. And copy them to each machine after installing the crippled mozilla on them.
You should be able to achiave your goals like this, if each machine requires uniqe settings(email and such) then you have some work to do, but it should'nt be impossible.
FRA: STFU GTFO
Its called a "corporate standard" for a reason.
Alex
I like Phoenix because I'm forced to switch between browsers a lot (thanks to my job). All the shortcut keys are similar between IE and Phoenix (unlike Mozilla). Alt-D puts me in the address bar (Ctrl-L in Moz), Shift-Click opens in a new window, and best of all, Ctrl-Enter in the address bar, as you said, works just like in IE. The consistency is handy if you use two different browser at the same time (like havign IE at home and Phoenix at work, as I imagine many of your employees will have).
What part of the article didn't I address? Sure the Google bit was a duplication, but that's how I came acroos the CCK in the first place.
How about understanding what I posted? I find a brain works well for that sort of thing.
/mike
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
I would expect the liability (not necessarily legal liability, but personal liability) would be far to great to standardize on IE. Would you install IE on 50 desktops if you knew your job was riding on IE's security and reliability.
Also, for the poster, I'd just have someone do it. Burn all the installer files for whatever platforms you're supporting to a cd and carry it from station to stations. Or share it on a network and do a network install. You'd be surprised how fast you can do them all after you've got the first ten or so done. Seriously, a good tech could do this in an afternoon, or a day at most. Plus it's good for the soul.
-dameron
Don't put your kid's picture up as wallpaper (less of a gripe, I don't really care, but give an inch...).
You aren't working with robots. People personalize their space to make it more comfortable to work in; lock them in cold blank walls with everything ISO-standard, they won't be happy. Give an inch.
Pink fonts in Monotype Corsiva on a light blue background makes it tough for me to troubleshoot.
Remember who uses the computer day in and day out. Not you.
Please reread that statement again and again when you feel like it's "Your Computer".
It's not "Your Computer", either. I'm not saying you should let pirate software and porn run around the computers, but complaining when the people that use the things change the fonts and colors to something that will make them more comfortable is excessive. Would you complain if someone moved the chair in the company car?
Real websites are built to standards, not on browsers that occasionally take liberties with those standards.
Why not? A site that works fine in $BROWSER_X but is a mess in $BROWSER_Y is a pretty sh*tty website. I'm not claiming that a site will render identically between two browsers...compare Mozilla for Win32 and Mozilla for Linux (the latter tends to choose font sizes that are too small). However, identical rendering isn't even the stated goal of HTML. (It's somewhat addressed by CSS, but even there you should expect some variability.) It is not at all unreasonable to expect a website to be functional when accessed with any browser. The path you'd take would only lead to further balkanization of the Web.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
So let me get this straight, the "end user" sitting in front of the machine 99% of the time should use the personal preferences of the grumpy SA. Makes sense. I hope those idiots keep their chairs at the proper height for you too. I mean, you need to be able to do *YOUR* job without distraction.
A genius in a sea of stupidity. How do you deal with it?
Knee, meet Jerk. Jerk, meet Knee. Apparently neither Vallon nor his 3 or 4 moderators bothered to read the freaking question. The IT guy specifically wants to use the mail client as well as the browser, and probably NNTP too.
Just because Phoenix is small and 1337 doesn't mean it's the answer to world peace, minty fresh breath, or every question that contains the word "Mozilla".
Do you put a picture of the family on your desk?
Now why would you do that? The desk is not for your personal use, it's the property of the company, if you didn't pay for it, it ain't yours.
Do you fiddle with the settings on your office chair?
Now why would you do that? The chair is not for your personal use, it's the property of the company. It isn't any of the company's business what settings on the chair are most comfortable for you. Personalisation does not benefit the company.
I wish more end users would remember that.
(</sarcastic-rant> for those who need it)
The computer, just like any other accessory you use in your workplace must allow for some personalisation.
As an IT drone, it is not your job to dictate what background picture/colour I have. If having BIG white letters on a black background increases my productivity, you, on behalf of the company, should be happy, even though it means you'll get to spend a few more minutes with me in the event that I need some help.
Dispite what you may have read when reading the BOFH archives, the system administrator should NOT get to dictate every single detail about the computing environment in the workplace.
Being the M$ lowlife that I am, I can only recommend something for your rollout on Windows-based clients.
I recommend using InstallRite by Epsilon Squared Inc. to automate installation of any application on multiple PCs with different hardware and software configurations.
It's easy to use and the documentation is good, IMHO. A big plus is that it is Freeware. Checking it out might be beneficial to you.
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
No other reasons are given.
The FACT that applying the constant flow of security patches for IE is way harder and time consuming than using Mozilla doesn't seem important for you. IE is from Microsoft, go with IE. That's all what seems to matter to you.
Also IE being integrated in Windows is kinda problematic. IE updates may affect the rest of the system - Mozilla is independent from Windows, therefore much better to control and maintain. On top of that, you can EASILY have as many different Mozilla installations on your PC. (which can be useful on upgrading - if you don't want to take any risks just add the new version instead of replacing the old version). Also you can also downgrade Mozilla, but last time I checked, the only way to downgrade IE is to reinstall Windows... Mozilla is easier to integrate and support than IE and upgrading is much safer.
And most importantly, Mozilla does not chain you to a vendor. Microsoft may raise license prices anytime - again. It happened before, it can happen again.
Phoenix development has died. Hyatt is now working on Safaria full time(he couldn't be happier), Blake(high schooler busy with getting ready for college) is MIA and Asa as usual doesn't comment on such things even when they seem grim. It looks like Phoenix as a project is dying/dead. No work has been done on Phoenix since December, and a critical bug has prevented anyone from using themes/extensions with new nightly versions since 12/28. This most basic bug pretty much shows the state of the project and how the developers involved have either a)lost interest or b) simply moved on. I know Blake had talked how eventually even he would get bored and move on(let any dev would), but it would have been nice if he had at least given some sort of warning.
Also the Mozilla development staff has been axed as well, so it too has slowed down at a very critical time when there have been a ton of regressions.
I'm a big fan of Mozilla(its all I use), so I hate to say these things which some people will undoubtably call FUD. But its not FUD and if you follow the project closely you'll know I'm not making this stuff up. Right now Mozilla is going through a very tough time and I really hope some new blood can come in to save it.
You'll excuse me for being a coward and not signing my name, but sorry that the way this has to be.
As an employee, it's not "your computer". It's the property of the company. I wish more end users would remember that. "Why are you messing with *my* computer? I've got it just the way I like it!" Sorry. Pink fonts in Monotype Corsiva on a light blue background makes it tough for me to troubleshoot. Don't put your kid's picture up as wallpaper (less of a gripe, I don't really care, but give an inch...). Don't install the "little program" you brought from home.
Those machines are also not there for the IT staff to use for some kind of power trip. Those machines are there to provide value to the company, which they presumably do when the users are working on them, not you. If the customizations they do make them work more effectively (translation: more motivated), that is good for the company. Certainly if they install viruses and stuff that creates trouble you need to take action, but the whining about text and background images is pathetic.
Somehow I thought that kind of tayloristic management (your desktop will show in 0.04 seconds faster if you don't have a background image) became almost extinct long ago. If you treat people like machines, they also react very cynical - and do as little work as possible without getting fired. Since there's an economic downturn I guess people will stick around - but if all your best men leave when it starts going up, I can't say I'm surprised. I wouldn't want to stick around at least...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
What, you just said you are going to use Mozilla? You will trust our company security to some FREEWARE when Microsoft has made security the company's first priority for the whole year??? Right here I have a resume of a Visual Basic programmer who wants to migrate our e-commerce server to IIS, SQL server and server-side VBSCript, using Microsoft passport security architecture. I think I would give him a call. Certainly PROPRIETORY SOFTWARE is better than all the FREE-WARE you installed on our network...
I believe the poster is referring to changing options in the installation process, not the application itself. As a system administrator, I can definitely see the advantage of forcing the user to install the default options I have chosen.
Obviously you can't prevent the user from changing preferences in the browser after it is installed (nor would you want to), but starting with a common baseline for all users simplifies support concerns immensely.
-
Stability for a production environment, which Moz 1.2.1 has. Phoenix is still alpha, and not very actively developed at the moment. Seems the developers have other things on their minds (safaris, schools
...) -
He has a mixed environment. He may have architectures which Phoenix does not support (it is MS Windows and Linux/Intel only.)
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All components, in particular Mail & News. Phoenix is browser only.
Mozilla 1.2.1 seems a good choice to me, maybe 1.3a or a carefully chosen nightly could be considered.Beonex is a consulting company working on this very issue. They have the start of roaming profile support working in mozilla, and create thier own browser Beonex communicator for this purpose.
Check out this bug on bugzilla where the start of roaming profile code exists for your compiling and testing pleasure. roaming profile setup IMHO is the way to go if folks use at different machines at different times. Outside of what's in the works...for now, I'd manually configure one for each platform and copy the folder over. Several different XPI's can be rolled into one, but it does take some hacking skills.
Later this year, Hopefully, roaming will be up and running in Mozilla and with that bwill likely come some nice deployment tools.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
If all your users use Windows then why do you need to switch them? I am using mozilla to type this and its a great browser but alot of websites send my "connection refused" errors because I do not use IE. It takes alot of man hours and hassle to upgrade all the users not to mention can cause complaints if your users recieve the same error messages that I do on a few sites.
I know Microsoft is a bully and want to prevent users from switching since IE is free and comes standard with every computer, but there really is inertia that locks people in.
You have to ask yourself time is it really worth it to switch them? And also what benefits will it bring to your organization.
http://saveie6.com/
No it is! My Computer....it tells me so.
Just look in the "Top-Left" corner of the screen.
You will find a picture of a computer and it says "My Computer".
Therefor it is. My Computer!...
--meh--
Feh. You're deliberately missing the point I attempted to make. What's very frustrating for most admins is the repeated visits to Ms. Jones machine because she insists on changing, deleting, or adding this to her machine. You can ask her, you can tell her, but you can't change it.
I'm not advocating a total lockdown. But some simple constraints can enormously streamline admin time and user time - I've known many, many users who will spend hours mucking about with desktop colors/schemes, surfing for 'just that right' background image, etc. Yes, they should be fired for wasting time; if they stood around the water cooler that long they'd surely be noticed.
I'd be interested in the feedback from admins who've worked at other LARGE corporations - I'm talking thousands of desktops here, not ten or twenty.
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
Assuming you are a UNIX/Linux environment:
:0 from one of the "Terminal Servers". Set up ssh with authorization keys to avoid the need for passwords, then use ssh to remotely execute Mozilla:
Server-side:
I would set up the needed configuration(s) on one server. Then I would set up a group of "Terminal Servers" that use NFS to mount the custom config(s) and needed binaries on the first server.
Client-side:
Set up all the clients to allow connections to display
ssh "mozilla --display=client-ip:0"
This command could be set up as an icon on the gnome-panel so the user only needs to click on a button to launch Mozilla.
Just a few ideas anyway...
Un-news
Based on your comments and by glancing over your resume I can tell your job involves a lot of hand holding and baby sitting. (I'm not being derogatory.) So if you work at some call center or something and have to support a bunch of relatively uneducated employees such as high school kids and mothers who got sick of staying at home, then I can see your point. When I made my original comment, I was thinking more along of the lines of competent end users. That is the work environment I'm most familiar with. As such, I really don't want (or need) someone changing my personal Desktop environment back to some "IT friendly" Microsoft default setting.
I'd be using cfengine (or something similar) to manage something that size. cfengine claims to be able to deal with Windows NT as well as Unix. I only discovered it a few months ago, so I'm still in the planning stages for our network (which is all Unix anyway), but hopefully something like that will be useful.
:).
http://pikt.uchicago.edu/pikt/other.html
Then again, cfengine might take a while to roll out
The question has interesting aspects where it relates to software management on the desktop. But it falls terribly short on reason. Why would you replace the user's prefered browser with your idea of what is right? Some may already have Moz on the desk, but I bet most will hate you for replacing IE. Have you nothing better to do than push out a browser (and IMHO a bad one) to the desktop? Surely there are more pressing issues for your IT shop to address.
www.jmagar.com
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This is pretty typical: in order to get even the simplest task done on Windows, the usual answer is: get another software package.
the money you spend will save you $$$ in man-hours trying
First, you are going to spend many man hours getting your manager to approve the purchase and order the applications. Then you are going to spend many more man hours installing them. Then you are going to spend many man hours trying to figure them out. Then you are going to spend even more man hours fiddling around with them trying to package up Mozilla. Then, you still need to figure out how to get the packages themselves or the client packages for those packages onto the clients. Then, if everything goes really well, you may be ready to install the software.
And when some major software upgrade comes from Microsoft or these vendors, you can start pretty much from square one.
That's of course assuming that those packages are completely bug free. More than likely, they will interact in some unknown way with some other software package and mess up something or other.
hackneyed, crappy homebrew solution in the long run
Professional chefs use a couple of knives to get the job done: they are reliable, predictable, simple, and efficient. Amateurs run out and buy every kitchen appliance under the sun, hoping to compensate with appliances for skills that they lack. It's no different with system management: if you don't know what you are doing, your answer is going to be: "oh, just buy another piece of software".
Windows, unfortunately, doesn't ship with any knives, but with Cygwin and Perl, you can get by. System management on Windows still like preparing a banquet in a kitchenette, but you don't need to make the effort even harder by stuffing the kitchenette full with useless junk.
What's so lazy about demanding convenience? After all, your computer's there to serve you, not the other way around.* Sometimes it's the attention to details like this URL shortcut that matters the most.
* Unless you're in Soviet Russia, I hear.
REGEDIT4
r entVersion\Run]Z ILLA.EXE\" -turbo"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cur
"Mozilla Quick Launch"="\"C:\\PROGRA~1\\MOZILLA.ORG\\MOZILLA\\MO
Other registry entries might be necessary to set Mozilla as the default browser.
Other handy tips for mozilla configuration (such as locked config items, automatically generated personal config, etc) can be found at http://www.alain.knaff.lu/howto/MozillaCustomizati on/
This is used in the schools participating in the LLL project.
Some Highlights:
- Any configuration options accessible in prefs.js can be stored in a locate mozilla.cfg file (optionnally locked in such a way that it can no longer be overridden by the user):
- Disable 'Open Unrequested Windows' (kill pop-ups),
- Enable HTTP Pipelining,
- Set toolbar to 'Pictures only',
- Set Home Page to my organization's intranet site,
- Set start page to 'Blank page',
- Enable Middle-click for new tab,
- Enable control+enter for new tab,
- Default downloads to 'open a progress dialog',
- Disable Javascript and Plugins for Mail & News
- Using mozilla's own registry (%USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Mozilla\registry.dat) set the profile directory (which contains prefs.js et al.) to be on the user's home directory (H:\). That way, you can have a personalized configuration (Mail & News) automatically created by a script. When the user first logs in, he doesn't need to set his email address, server name, etc for using Mail & News, everything is already done for him!
- Disabling of the bulky XUL.mfl file (whose sizes quickly add up if you have thousands of users): just create a directory named XUL.mfl, and Mozilla will be unable to create that file, and it will still work correctly!
- Automatical loading of the needed registry entries as soon as user logs in, using a netlogon script
At LLL, we deploy our machines using Udpcast, which might not be appropriate in your case (all your machines are different), but as other posters have pointed out, most of the client-side installation options can also be handled by a Zipfile plus a small install script to put stuff into the correct place.Say no to software patents.
An admin will develop a sort of possessiveness with their network. You may feel that you as a user spend more time with the computer than an admin, or in most cases recently, "the admin". Most users have no idea and can't comprehend the time that we actually spend working on the computers and networks.
... and many other IT people you DON'T see) don't usually get thanks. Users tend to grumble that though they need help, the admin is causing them an inconvenience by showing up to help!
Even if we aren't working over night rolling out a new hosting server. If we are not cabling the building over the weekend. We still vigilantly carry a pager or some other device that gets computer and network monitoring alerts.
You'd be shocked to know what some of the most inept computer doods know and can do.
And one other thing, they (Systems Administrators, Database Administrators, Datacenter Techs, NOC Monitors
Not our computers!? Well no, we don't own the company. Or do we!? We control every little tid-bit of data, if we don't than we are not doing our jobs. Its not just a job its a passion, and we do it well or we wouldn't still be helping our clients the users.
Companies like our bodies don't function correctly if something is missing. In this analogy the sales department are the hands extending out. Marketing would be the mouth showing our perly whites. R&D obviously the brain.
But where should we put IT, (using IT as an all encompassing term) I would have to say that IT makes up the nervous system (and spread the term back out as you see fit). I guess it's natural to have a few free radicals running around messing with your settings on your corporate workstation. And we haven't even mentioned the user/security issues.
Perhaps you'd like to take a field day (cross matrix training thingie) and be a SysAdmins sounding board. He can ask you questions and you can give him the answers to all his problems!?
My rant for the evening.
Have you thanked your Systems Administrator lately!?
:-( --- argh. Despair, I owe again.
"Second, I am not a Mozilla developer, so that won't be happening anytime soon"
You don't have to be a mozilla developer. Writing install scripts, javascript, or xul is pretty easy for just about anybody. Hell even if you simply documented what to do it would be a HUGE help.
"Modifications to the source *should* be made/will likely be required. "
Once again this is not true. There are many posts on this subject now which explain what needs to get done and none of them require source changes.
"MacOSX already handles users and seperating settings between users - it follows that Mozilla should use these more refined more standard methods rather than invent their own."
I am going to try a few experiments but I bet I can even use a centralized install of mozilla. Just install it in one place and have multiple users use it.
War is necrophilia.
We are currently deploying Mozilla 1.2.1 to our employees using a standard profile template filled with user specific values read from our LDAP system. This takes the hassle of configuration away from the user at the desktops and guarantees that he has a working profile the first time he launches Mozilla.
We had to manually edit the registry.dat file of the default Mozilla installation to point to the preconfigured profile in the user's home directory (drive H: on windows). We basically eliminated the random string in the profile path which is included for "security reasons" but makes automated profile generation very hard.
No we have a neat little script doing an sed over the profile template. With that we are able to generate user profiles in a second.
The binaries are distributed using "PC Updater", a package tool for windows. The packages includes the modified registry.dat file in c:\windows\application data\mozilla for win98. For W2K we put this registry.dat file into the user's roaming profile directory "application data\mozilla".
"Is it friday yet?"
The Nullsoft Scriptable Install System is the open-source installer developed for Winamp. (Yes, I know Winamp is closed, but the installer it uses is under the zlib license).
I'm not advocating a total lockdown. But some simple constraints can enormously streamline admin time and user time - I've known many, many users who will spend hours mucking about with desktop colors/schemes, surfing for 'just that right' background image, etc. Yes, they should be fired for wasting time; if they stood around the water cooler that long they'd surely be noticed.
I'd be interested in the feedback from admins who've worked at other LARGE corporations - I'm talking thousands of desktops here, not ten or twenty.
I worked for Chase Bank a couple of years ago. We are talking about 50,000 desktops world wide. They were all the same and they all were locked down so the end user could not install software. They could set the wall paper to what they wanted, and play with the fonts, but, if I remember correctly, the end user could not get to the Appearance tab to change how things looked, or activate "Active Desktop" or change desktop icons, or mess with the monitor resolution.
I have also worked for Amoco, before they merged with BP, and they were the same way. There was a standard desktop image and you could not change it. (Of course there are exceptions. If you are high enough on the org chart, the rules were bent/broken. Also if you were a friend of the admins, or were known to have a clue and not to call the admins unless there was a real problem that the clueful user could not fix.)
The point is that, in most large companies, there is a standard desktop image and the end users are locked out of most options to change/install anything on the computer. The arguement that "its their environment, they have the right to make it as productive as possible" doesn't hold water when the new Dancing Baby screen saver comes out, and 5 (or 50 or 500 or 5000, etc) users download it, install it and it proceeds to crash their computer every 5 minutes. The added cost to the help desk to tell the (l)users to reboot and reimaging the machine because "uninstalling" the screen saver (this is an example, it could be any software) does not fix the problem, is huge.
It is much easier for companies to take this approach up front when the user base is small then come in later, when the desktop count has grown from 10 to 50, and impose it after the fact. Have you tried to take root away from a developer after he/she has had it for months or years when you have been brought in to fix a problem? Once the genie is out of the bottle, you can stuff it back in, but you had better have the intestional fortitude, and the political pull, for the fight. It will be a long and hard one.
Kent
First thing to do is to fire up Mozilla and configure it how you want it to work on your network. Now look in your profile and take a copy of the file 'pref.js' and the file 'localstore.rdf'. Now put these files somewhere safe.
Take a clean machine (fresh install) and repackage Mozilla using WinInstallLE (This can be found on the Windows 2000 CD). Take your prefs.js and localstore.rdf file from before and add them into the package you have just created, ensure they are placed somewhere sensible like %PROGRAMFILES%\mozilla and rename them to something like 'default.js' and 'default.rdf' to prevent confusion with the original files. Ensure you configure your filesystem security so that people who shouldn't be able to change this files that will affect all users, can't.
To deploy the application, you might want to use SMS or maybe Active Directory group policy, but it doesn't stop there. For each user to have your configuration you need to ensure that when a mozilla profile is created for a user that their 'pref.js' and 'localstore.rdf' files are the same as the ones you made earlier, this can be done using a logon script. Here is the logon script that I use.
This won't prevent users from changing settings, but you can easily do this by modifying your pref.js file. For LOTS more information about doing this try this 111 pages of useful information