Software Update:Processing Updates
Overview of Process
During startup, Firefox will check for any updates that are ready to be applied and apply them. The process consists of the following:
- Check for the existance of an "updates" folder in the main application folder.
- Enumerate its subfolders and build a list sorted by folder name.
- Select the first folder in the list that is marked as pending.
- Mark the selected folder as updating.
- Spawn the updater application to apply the selected update.
- At this point, firefox exits.
- The updater takes over, applies the update (recording information to a log file for debugging purposes), and marks the update as either complete or failed.
- The updater then launches firefox with a special command line flag to resume execution.
- Firefox performs any post-install work, including for example fixing up any Windows registry keys.
Update Status
As described above, each update will have a status associated with it. The states consist of the following:
- pending - The update is ready to be applied
- updating - The update is being applied
- complete - The update was successfully applied
- failed - The update could not be applied
This information is recorded in a text file named update.status stored in each update folder.