Firefox 64 bit issue

I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.
--
Jeff Barnett

On 19/11/2017 5:11 PM, Jeff Barnett wrote:
I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

I Updated Firefox to version 57.0 yesterday and noticed the same thing
-- A 64 bit program in the "Program files (x86)" folder.
Everything is working ok but I am wondering if I should do a total
uninstall and then a reinstall of version 57.0 and see what happens.

I am not sure what to do.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maurice Helwig
~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 00:11:32 -0700, Jeff Barnett wrote:

I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.


I have seen that too, on another computer which gets automatic
updates for Firefox.

When Firefox is automatically updated, you now get the 64-bit version
provided you are running 64-bit Windows with enough RAM.
https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/fir...4-bit-windows/

I presume that you used to have the 32-bit version like I did. It
seems that because the 64-bit version was installed as an upgrade,
not as a fresh install, the files are put in the same location as
the 32-bit version which it upgraded.

You can always uninstall and re-install, as Maurice has replied.


--
Kind regards
Ralph
🦊

Maurice Helwig wrote:
On 19/11/2017 5:11 PM, Jeff Barnett wrote:
I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

I Updated Firefox to version 57.0 yesterday and noticed the same thing
-- A 64 bit program in the "Program files (x86)" folder.
Everything is working ok but I am wondering if I should do a total
uninstall and then a reinstall of version 57.0 and see what happens.

I am not sure what to do.


Firefox is a cross-platform software product. What
this means in practice, is Linux is a first class citizen,
while Windows is second class.

Nobody wants to pay for installer subsystem software for Windows.
In the case of Mozilla, that means something like NSIS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullso...Install_System

"NSIS is released under a combination of free software
licenses, primarily the zlib license. It has become a
widely used alternative to commercial proprietary
products like InstallShield"

Now, that doesn't mean it has to be bad. In fact, some
quite nice vanilla installers (i.e. they just copy files)
has been done with it.

*******

We get a hint here, as to how "hot" upgrades are done
on Firefox. So when you go from 32-bit to 32-bit,
it uses "Mozilla Firefox.bak" for staging. Someone
found the remnant, when an install failure left it
behind.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1026363

What that hints at, is by avoiding the Programs and
Features uninstaller, the installer makes *no attempt*
to do a nice clean job by completely removing the
old version.

So we know that the method they use, is quite
good at 32-to-32 upgrades.

*******

Now, imagine you're a clever software developer,
and you make a big noise about your bitness migration
strategy (forced migration).

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/07/22/fi...4-bit-upgrade/

Unless you make changes to the installer logic,
then the 64-bit executable is going to end up
in the 32-bit folder. Because this isn't a real
Windows installer, it's a copy-file script. They could
have done a real installer with an .msi file (very
complicated, Windows developers need apply).

*******

For a user, the first step is making sure you have copies
of everything first.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox # Program code

C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\abcd12 34.default # mainly cache

C:\Users\User Nam\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\abcd1 234.default # bookmarks, prefs.js, sqlite

It's the last item, that is most likely to matter.

If you migrate just bookmarks (via Export and then Import),
that's fine.

However, if you migrate sqlite databases, you get to keep
your "Downloads history". And maybe some icons.
You never know. The sqlite files are "hooked together"
and a numbered table entry in one of them, points to
something in another sqlite. They work as a team.
There used to be a schema diagram showing this.

So if you were going to do the right thing, by
uninstalling Firefox and then clean installing
Firefox x64, you'll want to populate the
profile storage area with your old profile.

Note that, the "Profiles" folder can contain
more than one profile. There is a profiles.ini
file, which "points" at a profile for you.
It can use a relative or absolute path. If you
don't want to destroy the "new" profile the
fresh 64-bit install creates, you can copy
the profile from the old one over to that level,
then edit the adjacent profiles.ini.

Mozilla in some cases, also accepts a command line
argument, so you can start one of their tools
with a nominated profile. I think there is a
little profile manager dialog for example.

The first time you start Firefox, it will probably
notice that the profile contains an older version.
I would expect forward migration to work (56-57),
whereas backward migrations would have no guarantees.
As far as I know, they're still using sqlite3, but
the subversion may have changed a bit. But at least
there is no "drop dead" format issue because
they used sqlite4 in one version and sqlite3 in
another version. They've been consistently using
some version of sqlite3 for a long time, for
compatibility reasons.

So you can fix it manually, as otherwise, who knows
whether there is a crash program to "re-jig"
the NSIS to do the migration properly.

Paul

Maurice Helwig explained :
On 19/11/2017 5:11 PM, Jeff Barnett wrote:
I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit program.
However FF including the exe files running are found in the "Program Files
(x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so, please share.

I Updated Firefox to version 57.0 yesterday and noticed the same thing -- A
64 bit program in the "Program files (x86)" folder.
Everything is working ok but I am wondering if I should do a total uninstall
and then a reinstall of version 57.0 and see what happens.

I am not sure what to do.

You can always perform a quick check by right clicking the app file,
click properties, click the compatibility tab. If you see Windows
Vista in the resulting "run as" box its 64 bit, if Windows XP its 32
bit.

--
Zo

"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people
will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."
-- Terry Pratchett (Diggers)

On 19/11/2017 10:35:55, Paul wrote:
Maurice Helwig wrote:
On 19/11/2017 5:11 PM, Jeff Barnett wrote:
I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

I Updated Firefox to version 57.0 yesterday and noticed the same thing -- A
64 bit program in the "Program files (x86)" folder.
Everything is working ok but I am wondering if I should do a total
uninstall and then a reinstall of version 57.0 and see what happens.

I am not sure what to do.


Firefox is a cross-platform software product. What
this means in practice, is Linux is a first class citizen,
while Windows is second class.

Nobody wants to pay for installer subsystem software for Windows.
In the case of Mozilla, that means something like NSIS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullso...Install_System

"NSIS is released under a combination of free software
licenses, primarily the zlib license. It has become a
widely used alternative to commercial proprietary
products like InstallShield"

Now, that doesn't mean it has to be bad. In fact, some
quite nice vanilla installers (i.e. they just copy files)
has been done with it.

*******

We get a hint here, as to how "hot" upgrades are done
on Firefox. So when you go from 32-bit to 32-bit,
it uses "Mozilla Firefox.bak" for staging. Someone
found the remnant, when an install failure left it
behind.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1026363

What that hints at, is by avoiding the Programs and
Features uninstaller, the installer makes *no attempt*
to do a nice clean job by completely removing the
old version.

So we know that the method they use, is quite
good at 32-to-32 upgrades.

*******

Now, imagine you're a clever software developer,
and you make a big noise about your bitness migration
strategy (forced migration).

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/07/22/fi...4-bit-upgrade/

Unless you make changes to the installer logic,
then the 64-bit executable is going to end up
in the 32-bit folder. Because this isn't a real
Windows installer, it's a copy-file script. They could
have done a real installer with an .msi file (very
complicated, Windows developers need apply).

*******

For a user, the first step is making sure you have copies
of everything first.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
# Program code

C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\abcd12 34.default
# mainly cache

C:\Users\User Nam\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\abcd1 234.default
# bookmarks, prefs.js, sqlite

It's the last item, that is most likely to matter.

If you migrate just bookmarks (via Export and then Import),
that's fine.

However, if you migrate sqlite databases, you get to keep
your "Downloads history". And maybe some icons.
You never know. The sqlite files are "hooked together"
and a numbered table entry in one of them, points to
something in another sqlite. They work as a team.
There used to be a schema diagram showing this.

So if you were going to do the right thing, by
uninstalling Firefox and then clean installing
Firefox x64, you'll want to populate the
profile storage area with your old profile.

Note that, the "Profiles" folder can contain
more than one profile. There is a profiles.ini
file, which "points" at a profile for you.
It can use a relative or absolute path. If you
don't want to destroy the "new" profile the
fresh 64-bit install creates, you can copy
the profile from the old one over to that level,
then edit the adjacent profiles.ini.

Mozilla in some cases, also accepts a command line
argument, so you can start one of their tools
with a nominated profile. I think there is a
little profile manager dialog for example.

The first time you start Firefox, it will probably
notice that the profile contains an older version.
I would expect forward migration to work (56-57),
whereas backward migrations would have no guarantees.
As far as I know, they're still using sqlite3, but
the subversion may have changed a bit. But at least
there is no "drop dead" format issue because
they used sqlite4 in one version and sqlite3 in
another version. They've been consistently using
some version of sqlite3 for a long time, for
compatibility reasons.

So you can fix it manually, as otherwise, who knows
whether there is a crash program to "re-jig"
the NSIS to do the migration properly.

Paul

I only saw this anomoly when I needed to uninstall another piece of
software the day after Firefox updated itself.

Odd thing here is that 57.0(64-bit en-gb)is in the x86 folder and
56.03(64-bit en-gb) was still in the 64bit Programs Folder.
I have always had Firefox set for automatic updates.
Some time back Firefox changed from the 32bit version to 64bit on this
machine. I can only assume that when that change occured the new 64bit
version was installed in the correct Programs Folder leaving the old
32bit version - whatever it was - in the x86 folder.
Consequently the newest update, 57, has updated to whatever version was
left in the x86 folder rather than overwriting 56.03 in the correct
folder.

--
mick

Jeff Barnett wrote:

I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

You sure you did not [still] have the 32-bit version of Firefox
installed and now you got upgraded to the 64-bit version (because the
installer detected your hardware was sufficient)?

I don't have anything Mozilla or Firefox under my C:\Program Files (x86)
folder. I haven't for a long time. When I decided to switch to the
64-bit of Firefox a long time ago (but waited until it was released), I
uninstalled the 32-bit version and did the remnant registry and file
system cleanup. Then I installed a *clean* instance of their 64-bit web
browser. After the automatic 57 upgrade in Firefox, there is still
nothing of Mozilla or Firefox under C:\Program Files (x86).

Load Firefox and look in Task Manager's Processes tab. Is there a "*32"
appended to the firefox.exe process(es)? That indicates a 32-bit
process. No bitwidth appended to the process name means it is a 64-bit
process. Lower-bit loaders have been around a long time. A loader that
is lower-bit (32-bit, in this case) is a stub program that loads the
actual 64-bit payload. Games have done this for a long time (but not
just to have a 32-bit loader for a 64-bit process but also for
protection to have each check the other hasn't been altered).

To where does the Firefox *shorcut* point (what path)? When you click
on a hyperlink to a URL (assuming Firefox is the default web client), is
"*32" appended (for a 32-bit process) to the firefox.exe process name or
not (for a 64-bit process)?

If you don't want any remnant of the 32-bit Firefox on your computer,
save your FF profile, uninstall Firefox, do the remnant registry and
file cleanup, and install a clean instance of FF x64.

On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 00:11:32 -0700, Jeff Barnett wrote:

I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

It makes absolutely no difference which directory it runs from.

--

Char Jackson

On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 17:41:15 +1000, Maurice Helwig
wrote:

On 19/11/2017 5:11 PM, Jeff Barnett wrote:
I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

I Updated Firefox to version 57.0 yesterday and noticed the same thing
-- A 64 bit program in the "Program files (x86)" folder.
Everything is working ok but I am wondering if I should do a total
uninstall and then a reinstall of version 57.0 and see what happens.

I am not sure what to do.

You don't need to do anything. It makes absolutely no difference which
directory it runs from.

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 00:11:32 -0700, Jeff Barnett wrote:

I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

It makes absolutely no difference which directory it runs from.


This is true.

I'm more concerned about the downstream effects.

If Mozilla can't figure out what directory to use,
will they be updating the correct folder later with
their NSIS installer ?

Mozilla will be more confused than the users are :-)

Paul

Paul wrote on 11/19/2017 5:01 PM:
Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 00:11:32 -0700, Jeff Barnett wrote:

I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

It makes absolutely no difference which directory it runs from.


This is true.

I'm more concerned about the downstream effects.

If Mozilla can't figure out what directory to use,
will they be updating the correct folder later with
their NSIS installer ?

Mozilla will be more confused than the users are :-)

Â*Â* Paul

Yes! Si! +1. etc.
--
Jeff Barnett

Jeff Barnett wrote on 11/19/2017 12:11 AM:
I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

I have a second question: How do you inspect an executing
application/process to determine if it's running 32 or 64 bits?
--
Jeff Barnett

On 20/11/2017 01:49, Jeff Barnett wrote:
Jeff Barnett wrote on 11/19/2017 12:11 AM:
I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

I have a second question: How do you inspect an executing
application/process to determine if it's running 32 or 64 bits?

If exe file is in "Program Files (x86)" folder then 100% it is 32 bit
version.

64 bit version will look like this:

https://support.cdn.mozilla.net/medi...-33-453995.png
https://support.cdn.mozilla.net/media/uploads/gallery/images/2017-10-14-05-20-33-453995.png


The picture quite clearly states that it is a 64 bit version.

I always thought that Windows users are relatively more intelligent than
users of other operating systems but some of the questions being asked
and answered here remains much to be desired.





--
With over 500 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 18:49:13 -0700, Jeff Barnett
wrote:

Jeff Barnett wrote on 11/19/2017 12:11 AM:
I'm currently running FF Version 56.0.2 which claims it's a 64 bit
program. However FF including the exe files running are found in the
"Program Files (x86)" folder. Any clue as to what's going on? If so,
please share.

I have a second question: How do you inspect an executing
application/process to determine if it's running 32 or 64 bits?

You could open Task Manager and look under "Processes"

On 19/11/2017 3:04 PM, Ralph Fox wrote:
I have seen that too, on another computer which gets automatic
updates for Firefox.

When Firefox is automatically updated, you now get the 64-bit version
provided you are running 64-bit Windows with enough RAM.
https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/fir...4-bit-windows/

I presume that you used to have the 32-bit version like I did. It
seems that because the 64-bit version was installed as an upgrade,
not as a fresh install, the files are put in the same location as
the 32-bit version which it upgraded.

You can always uninstall and re-install, as Maurice has replied.

Hmm, I didn't even notice that Firefox got updated to 64-bit until this
thread mentioned it. I remember I tried some 64-bit builds of FF in the
past, and though it worked almost like the 32-bit one, a few add-ons and
stuff wouldn't work back then. I ran the two versions of FF separately,
though they seemed to share the same profile directory.

It's interesting that they switched over to a 64-bit default just one
version before they switched to the version of FF that drops all past
compatibility! Now people are going to think that's because of 64-bit
rather than because of another design decision. I have the majority of
my previous extensions and add-ons that no longer work. All of them were
small little useful utilities that I doubt that anyone is going bother
making an update for, but they made my life a lot simpler. Now I have to
do a bunch things by hand that were automated before, including tab
creation behavior.

--
Sent from Giganews on Thunderbird on my Toshiba laptop