Can the Firefox software be updated to include the “Custom MSI Options” provided by Mozilla Firefox documentation as parameters in ImmyBot? This would let us disable desktop shortcuts when Firefox updates.
Documentation provided by Mozilla:
Deploy Firefox with MSI installers | Firefox for Enterprise Help (mozilla.org)
@Aaron_Pleus This is a pretty easy adjustment, but here’s something else to consider.
When “we” (and by we, I mean the global repo maintainers) look at a change like this, even though it’s a really easy change (which it is), adding that parameter can be either a)misleading or b)more complicated than a command line installation parameter.
If I were to just make the change, we would end up in Scenario A. The reason this parameter can be misleading is because the configuration task now displays a parameter implying that you can control whether the desktop icon appears (or not) with respect to Firefox. Now, someone comes along who has already installed Firefox, and changes that parameter with the expectation that Immy will remove it. If all I modify is the installation script, the desktop shortcut will not be removed. Along the same lines, if someone explicitly elects to show the desktop icon, and the icon is already gone, it won’t ever come back unless Firefox gets upgraded or reinstalled–resulting in support tickets that say “hey, this parameter is not doing what it should.”
…which brings us to Scenario B. This simple change just became more complex because now we have to consider separately (within the configuration task script) whether the icon exists (or not) and either remove it or re-create it–because the parameter was only used by the installation script (as you requested).
Now, if there’s a mechanism that I can use within Firefox itself to force the shortcut to be removed or re-created, then great, that’s a lot less script. Otherwise, we’re writing script to potentially manually rebuild a shortcut and actually confirm that the shortcut is to the appropriate target (c:\program…\firefox.exe).
I will look into Firefox a bit and see what can be done about the shortcut in the configuration task so it ultimately works “as expected” with respect to Immy. Just thought I’d share that and give requesters something to think about when seemingly simple requests get made.