I‘ve been using Firefox recently, since they finally released the Google Toolbar beta that includes Google Bookmarks. I have version 2.0 installed both at work and at home. A few days ago I got a pop-up message saying that an upgrade was available, to version 2.0.0.1, so I went ahead and let it download, install it, and restart Firefox. No problem. When I saw the notification the second time, there was no surprise, running two copies of course I’d have to update them both.

The third time I saw it I got a bit confused. Didn’t I already update both of my copies (home and work)? I checked the help menu’s About Mozilla Firefox and found that I was still running 2.0. Hmm, ok, downloaded again. That’s when I found that after the restart of Firefox, going back to the About window showed I was still running 2.0. It’s not updating! I check to see what this fix was for, after all, going from 2.0 to 2.0.0.1 appears to be a very minor fix. The key part that grabbed my eye was that it made Firefox compatible with Vista. Umm, I’m already running it on Vista, it would seem that it’s your patch that’s not compatible with Vista.

Now, I’m logged in as an administrator, and I have UAC active. I noticed the release notes for the patch say “When you launch the browser after it has downloaded a software update, you may get a dialog asking to permit ‘updater.exe’ to run. If you do not allow this operation, the software update will fail.”. I didn’t get that message, so apparently updater.exe isn’t trying to run.

With a little thought, and a little playing around, I think I’ve figured out what the issue is. When I’m initially asked to download the update, I don’t think it’s able to save the files where it wants to, and I’d guess as part of this, Updater is never told to run. So, I tried running Firefox as an administrator, and noticed that some files did get added to the Firefox ‘Updates/0′ folder. I restarted Firefox, and I’m still at the old version. I tried running the Updater.exe program as an Administrator, that didn’t work either. In the end, I had to run Firefox a second time as an administrator for the update to then work.

So, if you want to update Firefox running on Vista from 2.0 to 2.0.0.1, you need to:

1. Start Firefox as an administrator by right-clicking on the icon in the programs menu, or on the actual executable file, and choose Run as administrator
   
2. When it opens, go to the Help menu and choose Check for Updates
   
3. You’ll be told an update is available. Click Download and Install Now.
   
4. When told that the download succeeded, DO NOT select the default option Restart Firefox Now, doing so will not start it with the elevated privileges that are needed. Instead, choose Later.
   
5. Exit from Firefox (use the close button or choose Exit from the File menu) and then restart it again as you did the first time, with the Run as Administrator option.
6. You should see a screen saying that the install is happening, and when it’s finished Firefox will start and you probably see this page:
   
7. If you want to confirm that you are now running the latest version, go to the Help menu and choose About Mozilla Firefox, you should see the version number now at 2.0.0.1.