Installing more than one version of the same browser

J

Janice

When installing more than one version of the same browser, Is it done by installing different versions in different directories?

If the answer to this is 'yes', does each version create it's own user profile, every time a different version is installed?

Is it also possible to install different versions in different folders in the same directory?

Further advice is most welcome
 
Janice said:
When installing more than one version of the same browser, Is it done by installing different versions in different directories?
Click to expand...

Yes, but install path must be edited manually or Firefox and most other browser just replace the same path and try to delete your old copy. Most people here use FF29, FF52 etc as folder paths. What's even worse, if jumping from major version firefox loses your old bookmarks.

Janice said:
If the answer to this is 'yes', does each version create it's own user profile, every time a different version is installed?
Click to expand...

This is tricky, if you start firefox it tries to overwrite you but if you start it with -p or -P for the first time, it will start the profile editor and allow you to choose a second profile. Be warned FF does some nasty things in an effort to always rid you of your past browser, including removing profiles, add ons etc..

Janice said:
Is it also possible to install different versions in different folders in the same directory?
Click to expand...

Not really, it would just cause errors unless the differences were extremely minor like 27.1 to 27.5 and even then you would have to rename the exe's .. not recommended

Use mypal 28 which can render 95% of sites and keep a backup for firefox 52 for very new stuff that mypal might not support. You missed the greatest post in this forum.

https://www.xpforums.com/threads/howto-firefox-mp4-for-xp-and-multi-profiles.933606
 
Thank you for the above link. Some things are not clear to me. Assuming that I already have version 52, is it my first action to create the 2nd profile (before downloading version 25 that I also want to use), and is it after creating the 2nd profile only, that I download the version25? How and at what point do I append the profile name to "C:\Program Files\Firefox25\firefox.exe" to read "C:\Program Files\Firefox25\firefox.exe" -P "f2"? Is it by changing the term 'Firefox' to 'Firefox25', that you edited the install path during installation? Is it when you do this, that it goes to a different folder?
 
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Firefox 25 and 52 profiles are not compatible so neither will have 2 profiles unless you want to. There would be one profile under 25 and one under 52.

That post is sort of superseded and there is no sense to get 25 because mypal runs the same code base but supports more stuff. Either way if you prefer FF25 or mypal, I would download both desired versions, then go off line, then uninstall all current browsers and re install the two new ones. The best would be Mypal 28 and FF52 but you can do FF25 and FF52 if you want to. Also delete all profiles first, in application data and user/application data. Also backup bookmarks to desktop not firefox folder since you will be deleting that.

you want to do it offline as firefox will try update you, then turn off auto updates for 25.

In the end you want your desktop shortcuts to say

C:\path to 25\firefox.exe -p profile1
C:\path to 52\firefox.exe -p profile2

Which is achieved by right clicking the shortcut and editing path
 
Not much more I can add to what Lockherup is telling you--that's on-the-money advice! I would advise that if you want to use two different versions of Firefox, you have a lot of XP-compatible versions to choose from. Here are some milestone versions, actually:

-1.5.0.13pre (last version designed for Win95 and [IIRC] NT 3.51)
-2.0.0.22pre (last version designed for Win98/98SE/ME and NT 4.0)
-3.6.29pre (last version to have a classic Firefox feel [no orange FF button])
-4.0.2pre (last version before Firefox switched to a rapid release schedule)
-10.0.12 ESR (only ESR designed for Windows 2000)
-12.0 (last version designed for Windows 2000)
-17.0.11 ESR (last ESR to have JavaScript toggling accessible from the options menu)
-22.0 (last FF version to have JavaScript toggling accessible from the options menu)
-24.8.1 ESR (last ESR without the Australis interface)
-28.0 (last FF version without the Australis interface)
-31.8.0 ESR (last ESR to have the old-school pop-up options menu by default)
-37.0.2 (last FF version to have the old-school pop-up options menu by default)
-38.8.0 ESR (first ESR AND FF version with tabbed preferences, though the pop-up options menu can be resurrected via about.config)
-45.9.1ESR (last ESR to not require a processor with SSE2 support)
-48.0.2 (last FF version to not require a processor with SSE2 support)
-51.0.1 (last FF version to support all NPAPI plugins [not just Flash])
-52.9.1ESR (last ESR AND FF version designed for Windows XP)

If I'm not mistaken, there are a few more milestones worth mentioning here, but this should pretty well cover the major milestones.

Of course, I am going strictly off official Mozilla releases, though some of these are nightlies and Tinderbox builds. I don't count stuff like roytam1's browsers (at least for now; once they're more stable and use less RAM then I might be more inclined to). If you want to have two FF versions on your PC, then my two choices would be 28.0 and 52.9.1ESR. 24.8.1ESR is newer than 28.0, but it is lacking in web compatibility by comparison (for example, Twitter [the full/main desktop site, not the legacy/mobile versions] only starts to work properly with 26.0, but that too has trouble with a decent number of modern sites; 28.0 is when Mozilla's rendering really started to catch up with today's web standards, though sadly it coincided with Mozilla ushering in Australis with 29.0). 28.0 should work fine for most sites, and 52.9.1 ESR can well pick up the slack on ones that it may be starting to struggle with right now.

Not sure what more I can say here...hopefully some might find this info helpful!
 
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Thank you. Does 52.9.1 play MP4 by default. If the answer is 'no' which version does, if at all?

I also came across an old entry in my note book which says to append -P ProfileName -no-remote instead of -p profile1 to the desktop short cut C:\path to 25\firefox.exe -p profile. What does this mean?
 
Janice said:
Thank you. Does 52.9.1 play MP4 by default. If the answer is 'no' which version does, if at all?

I also came across an old entry in my note book which says to append -P ProfileName -no-remote instead of -p profile1 to the desktop short cut C:\path to 25\firefox.exe -p profile. What does this mean?
Click to expand...

-P starts the profile editor
-p starts the browser with specified username .. like firefox.exe -p janice .. doesn't have to be profile1, profile1 is the name you come up with. if you want you can just always use -p and no username and then it brings up the profile picker, or save a click by choosing -p username

so in the end your desktop icon path should point to C:\Program Files\FF52\firefox.exe -p janice

52 should play vids but its the slowest. just try it
 
A while back I came across this page, which should help you to remedy the situation as far as being able to play videos in Firefox. 38.8.0 ESR is your earliest safe bet if you want to play videos in FF (38.0 was the earliest version to ship with the Primetime plugin), but 52.9.1ESR is more secure if you're willing to give up some speed. The advice listed here should work on any version from 38 to 52.

http://wp.xin.at/archives/4059
 
Many thanks for all the help. I should be able to do this now :) As mentioned in my post #6, what is the significance of including the term -no-remote after the profile name. Just for knowledge. I don't remember where I got this from.
 
I think this allows you to start a new browser without the profile. I think it has other uses as well like starting a second version when one version is already running. I would ignore this as its way to complicated and not needed. when you run want to run 25 just make sure 52 is closed or the other way around.
 
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