You are here

Deleting Win32 directory, Firefox.

6 posts / 0 new
Last post
endell esq
Offline
Last seen: 5 hours 56 min ago
Joined: 2023-02-14 07:11
Deleting Win32 directory, Firefox.

On one of my older computers, I'm running Win 7 and Firefox portable 88.0.1. To save space, is it possible to delete the Win32 directory (D:\firefox 74\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox)?
I've done this with a few other portable apps and it appears to work OK, but as I backup Firefox fairly frequently, I wanted to check if it was safe to do so.

Thanks.

John T. Haller
John T. Haller's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 hour 2 min ago
AdminDeveloperModeratorTranslator
Joined: 2005-11-28 22:21
Yes

You can safely delete the App\Firefox directory. It will be recreated on next upgrade.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

endell esq
Offline
Last seen: 5 hours 56 min ago
Joined: 2023-02-14 07:11
Got an error message

Thanks, I deleted the D:\firefox 74\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox directory, just leaving the D:\firefox 74\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox64 directory. When I restarted Firefox I got an error message that FF could not start, (Firefox.exe could not be located)
I renamed the D:\firefox 74\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox64 directory to D:\firefox 74\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox and Firefox started and seemed to be OK.

It appears that Firefox.exe looks in the Firefox directory first and then starts Firefox from the Firefox64 directory. Is this normal, and is it OK to delete the Firefox directory and rename the Firefox64 to Firefox?

Although it appears initially to be OK, I'm nervous that it mat cause some sort of problem later on.

I noticed that two directories are created on my C drive when I installed Firefox in user>appdata>roaming>mozilla, and user>appdata>local>mozilla.
Could these have something to do with it?

John T. Haller
John T. Haller's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 hour 2 min ago
AdminDeveloperModeratorTranslator
Joined: 2005-11-28 22:21
Old Launcher?

Are you using an outdated FirefoxPortable.exe launcher? If you only update Firefox Portable with Firefox's built in updater, it's probably an older version that doesn't support the 32-bit firefox.exe being there. Upgrading without the PA.c Platform instructions are here: https://portableapps.com/support/portable_app#upgrading

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

endell esq
Offline
Last seen: 5 hours 56 min ago
Joined: 2023-02-14 07:11
Installed manually

I originally installed it as a stand alone and I upgraded to 88.0.1 by downloading and installing manually. Is it OK to just delete the Win32 folder and rename the 64 bit folder (as described above)?

At the moment I want to stick to the 88.0.1 version (although I will bump it up at some point), is there a way to convert it into a portable app done with the launcher, or would I have to re-install it and copy my extensions, bookmarks etc over?

John T. Haller
John T. Haller's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 hour 2 min ago
AdminDeveloperModeratorTranslator
Joined: 2005-11-28 22:21
Probably, Unsupported

It will probably work, but it's not supported.

Note that 88.0.1 is also unsupported and has known security vulnerabilities.

When you upgrade, it should be able to install over your existing one. Be careful though as waiting too long between upgrades can introduce its own issues. I doubt the current version of Firefox could properly upgrade a profile from Firefox 1.0 for instance.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Log in or register to post comments