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?

"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'

As you can imagine, doing this on 50 computers (and making sure I got each of these) would be quite tedious. Are, there others out there that want to do the same thing. I checked the Mozilla newgroups. I checked the CCK Project page at Mozilla.org -- it appears to be pretty inactive. I checked out the Netscape 7 CCK, which is pretty robust but doesn't do everything I want and it's proprietary -- plus, I don't want all the NS7 proprietary crap on my network.

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?"

Comments

just copy the directory

[Anonymous Coward]

just copy the directory, mozilla doesn't need registry entries.. it stores all its settings in some whacky xml files

Re:just copy the directory

[MikeFM]

Copying the directory is pretty much what I'd suggest. Configure one browser for each platform and make a tarball for Linux, a zip installer for Windows, etc and just copy your settings over. For 50 machines it wouldn't be worth the effort of using a client customization kit or anything like that. As far as keeping users from changing their settings that's easy enough in Linux but am not sure how you'd do it in Windows or MacOS. Just change the owner of the config files away from the user and give them read but not write permissions to those files.

Re:just copy the directory

[SnowDeath]

Dont forget to copy the registry.dat when you copy Mozilla from Application data so that Mozilla knows where you are storing the Mozilla profile. As long as you are using 2000/XP (NT could work too, that's what I had have to use at work right now), just make all of your profile directories/files ready only *EXCEPT* the parent salted directory, they need read/delete to that for the lock file.

The way I have Mozilla set on our NT4 machines is to use the profile editor (name?), delete the default, create my own (named modlang, being that I run the modlang computer lab) profile, put it under mozilla.org in the program files directory, set everything to the way I want (popup blocking, default homepage, etc) and then simply copy mozilla.org directory (with mozilla already being installed on the profile creating machine) to each target machine.

The tricky part was figuring out that I needed to copy the registry.dat to default user's application data directory, after figuring that out it is cake.

Re:just copy the directory

[Vaughn Anderson]

If this is totally true, and you can just copy the directory then all you have to deal with is this-
Buy Wise installer or some other installer App (perhaps 1 for each OS, can't imagine it would be more than 3)

1) If what was stated is true (that you can simply copy the folders) then make an installer based on your one computer's Moz setup.

2) This will compress your files.

3) You can add any extra files you want (.jar or otherwise) Install those as well, or even make seperate installers for the jar files, and simply include them in the installer. You can put these files anywhere you want on their system as well, simple point, click and naming folders and such, it's very easy.

4) Any variations of versions of an OS (say windows 95 vs Windows XP) can be detected using scripting in the Wise installer (or hopefully any other installer you use) and then you can install different files based on the version of the OS.

5) You would maintain total control of how the installer puts files on the end users computer. (One installer I made when ran, didn't ask the user anything, just opened up, installed the files and then closed.)

6) Any and all shortcuts, and folder groups are all super cake and easy to setup with a good installer application. I highly recommend wise if you do any installing on windows.

7) A simple wise for windows installer 4 standard edition is $450, with all the power and ease of use you get for it, you will find it can help you with many other things to install besides this. You can make installers to install installers, just to get past people screwing up things. :) (like automated button clicks and the such) though I have only experimented with these things a little.

8) If you have the money and the time to learn the more robust installers, you may be able to do even more than the above.

-v

Priorities

[trans_err]

Seems to me like you're just begging for large scale trouble. Take the time and make annnnnnnn image for all the computers, making the one or two neccesary for differences in platforms are still going to save you a lot of time in the long run. What happens when you decide you want to update to Mozilla 1.3 or roll out some other app? In the long run it seems like you could greatly increase stability, continuity, and prohibit a lot of headaches like this one if you just slow down and build from the ground up.

IMHO of course.

Re:Priorities

[pavera]

He stated in his post that making images wasn't really going to reduce complexity because the systems themselves are too varied, images do not reduce the amount of time needed in this case. if you have 50 computers and they all have different hardware, you've gotta have 50 images, your average win2k image with no software is about 1 Gb, with stuff like office, and other software, easily 1.5Gb each, so, now you're looking at 75Gb of storage just to keep all of your images (not that 75Gb is some huge amount anymore really, but it is pretty big, I used to work in a 130 employee firm, and until about 1 year ago we only had 100gb of total server storage space, so 75 of that used up for images wasn't feasible at all). plus you have to keep track of which image goes to which computer, besides, you'd have to manually install all of the software on *each* computer anyway to create the initial images, images will not help in this case.

Re:Don't use Mozilla

[pavera]

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...

Uhh... this is what you DON'T want to do

[cscx]

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.

Re:Uhh... this is what you DON'T want to do

[FatherOfONe]

I agree with you, and am a HUGE fan of WinInstall, but there is a couple of issues.

1. WinInstall handles win9x and winnt/2k/XP clients differently.

2. All the systems you mentioned cost money. A significant amount of money.

3. SMS will only work with Microsoft stuff and it kinda sucks, although I heard the new version is ok. Just expect vendor lock-in.

4. Novell Zenworks will require an NT server or a Novell server, and the version that I used put all the files in NDS. You couldn't edit them or do much with them after you did a scan. WinInstall blew them out of the water.

The core reason you use an unatended install is the EXCACT reason this guy wants one and WinInstall isn't such a good option. He has 50 desktops probably all different. Some have multiple drives some don't. If you made a WinInstall or SMS or ZenWorks package to do this type of install, you better be great a building those packages, because you will be using your "test" machine as a template for all the desktops in the organization. If for some reason that test machine had a DLL that the other 40 didn't have...

Ok, I'll take a shot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why make it harder than you need to? How about this:

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.

The easy way...

[DaveOnNet]

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.

It' won't be easy...

[weave]

I tried, went through hell. I assume you're doing this in a Windows environment. If so, be aware of some real killer limitations.

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:

mozilla.exe -CreateProfile "default z:\mozilla"

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).

Re:It' won't be easy...

[BlueUnderwear]

Windows has a nasty habit of duplicating roaming profiles, like profiles\user, profiles\user.domain, profiles\user.domain.000, etc...

We have seen this behaviour too. However, apparently, as far as we could see, it would only happen on Win2k, on NTFS partitions. Win2k + FAT32 was ok. So, what we did was create a small D: partition as FAT32, and configured Windows to store the cached user profile on that partition. From then on, our "multiple profiles" problem was gone.

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.

Or just store the profile somewhere on the user's home directory (H:\Mozilla\)

...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...

No need to bother with vbscript. Just use locked settings in the mozilla.cfg file. This page described how. Just insert entries such as the following into your mozilla.cfg.txt:

lockPref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://my.home.page/");

Then encrypt the file to mozilla.cfg using this program (with an offset of 13). N.B. The mozilla.cfg.txt file must start with a comment (two slashes), and be referenced from all.js or else it will be ignored by mozilla. After having set up a mozilla.cfg, the user can no longer change the relevant settings (they are greyed out), and even if he does manually edit his prefs.js, mozilla will fix prefs.js the next time it starts up.

Web Browser Kiosk Build-Experience

[VoidEngineer]

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.

Some simple ideas.

[The Creator]

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.

Re:Question...

[Alex]

Its called a "corporate standard" for a reason.

Alex

Re:Question...

[dvdeug]

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?

Re:Question...

[SlashdotLemming]

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?

Don't ignore the question

[frankie]

* Install everything but Quality Feedback Agent
* Disable Javascript and Plugins for Mail & News
* 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 would use its leaner & meaner cousin, Phoenix

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".

Re:Question...

[Bake]

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.

Win32 architecture solution...

[MoThugz]

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.

Stick with Moz not Phoenix

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

*These machines are not for your display of power*

[Kjella]

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

Good point!

[iamacat]

As an employee, it's not your network. I wish more system administrators would remember that. "Why are you messing with *my* data center? I've got it just the way I like it". Sorry. SSH and VNC are SECURITY HOLES. Any HACKER can DOWNLOAD the source code ON THE INTERNET and BREAK IN. Microsoft spent millions of dollars and countless man-hours designing remote administation tools. Just keep a cart with a keyboard and monitor, connect it to the server in the rack that stops responding and click Ok on that message box. Also, If I find any non-approved scripting language like Perl, it (and you) are gone. Microsoft already has batch files and you have no reason to muck around.

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...

Re:Lockout users

[chundo]

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.

Ask Ben over a Beonex.com

[BroadbandBradley]

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.

Why do you need to do this?

[Billly Gates]

*Here comes the flames (gulp)

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.

Re:Why do you need to do this?

[mccrew]

Mozilla has never had a problem rendering any properly coded site for me. [Emphasis added]

It always rubs me the wrong way when geeks here on slashdot argue how perfect the world would be if all the hack web authors wrote "properly coded" websites. It is just a undeniable reality that the web is chock full of wrongly-coded, badly-coded, intentionally-broken code, and it is important that any browser degrade gracefully under such circumstances[, at which Mozilla does a very respectable job].

Sitting back in a chair and ruminating about "properly coded" sites is not an option.

More on topic, I think that it is a huge mistake if the original poster forces his [ahem, non-standard] choice on the unsuspecting users. As IE is already installed on all Windows desktops already, and since all websites are written with IE as the target, he is setting himself up for a rude awakening.

Re:Why do you need to do this?

[buchanmilne]

Sitting back in a chair and ruminating about "properly coded" sites is not an option.

Yeah, some people take the only option that will help reduce the number of non-standards-complian sites, and that's increasing the number of non-MS browsers. What are you doing about the situation?

Our users like mozilla (after they have used it for a while and see how much better it is). Why should they have to use something else to access a website?

More on topic, I think that it is a huge mistake if the original poster forces his [ahem, non-standard] choice on the unsuspecting users. As IE is already installed on all Windows desktops already, and since all websites are written with IE as the target, he is setting himself up for a rude awakening.

How so? Since IE is *still* on the desktops, the users can use IE if they get to a site that sucks. And they can do the evangelisation.

Remember that supporting IE has it's own headaches (security vulnerabilities go unfixed for months). It's the admin's choice what he wants to support, unless management has directed what to use, which normally isn't the case in small companies (since management doesn't know enough to choose).

But....

[hswerdfe]

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!...

Only on Slashdot...

[jmagar.com]

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.

typical

[g4dget]

What you want to do is use something like Microsoft Systems Management Server, [microsoft.com] Veritas WinInstall, [ondemandsoftware.com] or Novell ZenWorks SnAPPShot [novell.com]

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.

It needs registry for Quicklaunch and dflt browser

[BlueUnderwear]

There is one thing where Mozilla does need the registry, namely quicklaunch mode. Quicklaunch mode is quite handy if you have impatient users: this launches all lengthy startup stuff in the background as soon as you log in to your workstation. When you then click on the Mozilla icon, Mozilla is there in under a second. Here is the required registry entry (in regedit format, just put this into a .reg file, and load it using regedit -s)

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run]
"Mozilla Quick Launch"="\"C:\\PROGRA~1\\MOZILLA.ORG\\MOZILLA\\MOZ ILLA.EXE\" -turbo"

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.

Re:My Environment vs My Computer

[h8macs]

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.

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 ... 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!

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!?