Firefox not updating in Windows 7

Lost Colonist said:

Window's firewall by default is set to allow all outbound traffic, so you really shouldn't have to add an allow anyway. I just thought that you might be using a third party firewall installed :)

When you go into the Window's firewall, the center pane (over view) will tell you outbound settings there for each zone (marking them by green for allowed, red for not (without explicit permission.)

Right now it's late for me, so I have to sleep lol. I'll think about this more later if it hasn't been solved by then

450125 said:

Lost Colonist said:

In my install of FF it is C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\updater.exe

Odd.

Many of my programs, including FF and its components, are just scattered, uncategorized and not in folders, in my c:\programs folder. There is an updater.exe there, and I added it to the Windows firewall exceptions.

But it's still not getting the update.

Really annoying. At least my adding updater, once I restarted FF, got me to the update server. But then I got this message:

Unable to Update: A recommended security and stability update is available, but you do not have the system permissions required to install it. Please contact your sys admin, or try again from an account that has permission to install software on this computer.

Googling the message brings up (all I saw anyway) were threads from a Mac forum.

Again, I realize that supposedly I can "clean install" a new download of FF. But why? Especially since there are times that FF is updating once a month or more, and I'd like the old method, which took maybe 30 seconds, to do what it should, rather than the longer process of going from scratch. And I know how to retain my profile data. But again, why risk losing or corrupting it.

So love to hear from someone how to have FF under Windows 7 just intelligently update the way it did under Windows XP.

Okay, problem sort of solved.

I finally just downloaded the latest FF installer.

It upgraded me quickly, with no loss of profile information.

Oddly, my FF program stuff remains scattered around my c:\programs folder, not in its own folder.

But at least I'm on 3.6.15 and I will see what happens when FF next wants to push an update to me. Hopefully that installation just happens and works.

Create a system restore first .
Export your bookmarks.
Backup the contents in C:\Users\(User Name)\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla then delete the contents.
Uninstall Firefox.
Then backup C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox then delete the contents.
Now reinstall Firefox. This will give you a fresh install.

belikexp said:

Create a system restore first .
Export your bookmarks.
Backup the contents in C:\Users\(User Name)\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla then delete the contents.
Uninstall Firefox.
Then backup C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox then delete the contents.
Now reinstall Firefox. This will give you a fresh install.

Okay, the newest FF, 3.6.16, gave me the same problems, so I followed your advice. I uninstalled 3.6.15, then clean installed it using the installer I'd downloaded for it a few weeks ago. From there, FF updated itself to 3.6.16, downloading the updates from the server as it should have.

Here's what I think the problem was. FF tries to install in C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox. However, it was the first install I did on the computer after booting it after installing W7, and I mistakenly thought that I should force it into the non-(x86) "Program Files" folder. Instead of then neatly installing everything into a dedicated Mozilla Firefox folder, the installer had strewn all the pieces into the C:\Program Files\ folder.

This time, I let FF install where it wanted to, and the update then worked as it should have.

Dumb of me to think I knew more that Mozilla or Windows about where to put the thing, huh?