Deploy Firefox using an .msi file and group policy

If you're looking for a Firefox.msi file in order to deploy Firefox using group policy, you don't have to look any further. Ok, I lied a little bit. You're going to have to visit FrontMotion to download one, but then that will be it. You can get the .msi file from http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/download_firefox.htm. Currently they're up to date with version 3.6.13. If you're looking to deploy Google Chrome too, check out my other article.

One thing I found though is that the .msi that FrontMotion provides also forces Firefox to be your default browser without prompting you. Maybe that'll work for you if you want to for it to be the default browser, but I only wanted to publish Firefox as an optional browser for users to install from the network. If you're looking to do the same as me, luckily you can create a transform file pretty easily that will fix this for you if you have Orca installed. If not, you can download the Microsoft SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c17ba869-9671-4330-a63e-1fd44e0e2505&displaylang=en and that includes Orca.

Once you have Orca installed, use it to open the firefox.msi file you downloaded from FrontMotion.com. Then go to Transform->New Transform

Now you can make the changes to the .msi settings. There are three things to change, that I originally found here:

1. In the "Feature" table, find "F_SetDefaultBrowser" and change the level to 6
2. In the "Property" table, find "INSTALLLEVEL" and change the value to 3
3. In the "Registry" table, find "RegKey045" and right-click and choose "Drop Row"

Once you've made those three changes you can create the transform. To do that, go to Transform->Generate Transform...

This will prompt you to name and save your .mst file somewhere. Now you have the .msi and the .mst transform file and you're all set to deploy.

Just like any other GPO software deployment, make sure that you use the network path to your .msi file rather than browsing out to the location. Also, make sure to select Advanced after selecting the .msi file so you can include the .mst file you created under the Modifications tab. I'm assuming that you're familiar with group policy software deployment if you're reading this so I'm not going into those details, but if for some reason you're not leave a comment and I'll try to help. If you're interested in setting policies for Firefox through group policy, download the firefox.adm file from here. Good luck!