Install Firefox extension using windows registry

Question

I have followed the instructions here [MDC - Adding Extensions using the Windows Registry], but haven't been able to get Firefox to automatically install my extension when I restart it.

I have written an application that is half windows service and half FF extension. I have built an installer and want it to be able to install the Firefox extension along with the service.

So far I have tried the following things:

• Removing my dev version of the extension from FF first
• Removing the pointer file to my dev version of the extension from my profile dir
• Removing my "dev" profile completelly so that FF only has a "default" profile
• Running FF without the -no-remote and -P switches I setup for the dev environment
• Trying the key in both HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
• Carefully checking the ID and Paths I have used
• Trying Paths that don't include spaces
• Trying the Paths in Quotes
• Trying a trailing \ at the end of the path
• Trying the .xpi filename at the end of the path instead of just the dir name
• Building the XPI using the Extension Builder plugin instead of manually (although my manual build would install just fine if I dragged it to FF)

I'm using FF3.5.2 on Windows 2003 Server (could it be a W2K3 install security issue?)

UPDATE: Now tested also on WinXP FF3.0.11. Same problem.

Answer 1

I noticed that it's really important to have back-slash in the file path, ex: [TARGETDIR]Extension\Firefox\

Answer 2

OK. I figured it out myself! I miss-read one line of the instructions!!!

"the location of the unpacked XPI"

I must be losing my mind. For some reason I reread this as the "packed XPI" over and over!!! (I feel very silly now)

The answer was to use the unpacked files in the install dir not the .xpi file.