TB2 -> TB3 in corporate environment
Timo Pietilä
I have tried to look some advices to how to upgrade thousands of
computers from TB2 to TB3 without changing their "feel" and keeping
initial settings as close to TB2 as possible.
What I would require is at least:
Keep "smart folders" out of the picture.
Keep toolbars as close to original as possible
and because of roaming profiles and gigabyte-class mailboxes
- indexing off
- IMAP -mail folder settings offline off for all folders.
Users could then, if they want to, change those any way they want, but
for migration process change is too big and would just block our
helpdesk completely if those cannot be set during installation.
Is there any way to force these settings for initial installation?
Timo Pietil�
Annailís
You perhaps should ask these questions in the
mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird group as well.
--
Annail�s
Timo Pietilä
x-post added there.
Timo Pietil�
Jason Oster
> Annailís wrote:
>> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>>> Hello.
>>>
>>> I have tried to look some advices to how to upgrade thousands of
>>> computers from TB2 to TB3 without changing their "feel" and keeping
>>> initial settings as close to TB2 as possible.
>>>
>>> What I would require is at least:
>>>
>>> Keep "smart folders" out of the picture.
>>> Keep toolbars as close to original as possible
>>>
>>> and because of roaming profiles and gigabyte-class mailboxes
>>> - indexing off
>>> - IMAP -mail folder settings offline off for all folders.
>>>
>>> Users could then, if they want to, change those any way they want, but
>>> for migration process change is too big and would just block our
>>> helpdesk completely if those cannot be set during installation.
>>>
>>> Is there any way to force these settings for initial installation?
>>>
>>
>> You perhaps should ask these questions in the
>> mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird group as well.
>
> x-post added there.
>
Hello Timo,
At our organization, where I'm in charge of deploying updates, I've
found that "disabling" Smart Folders means copying or patching
localstore.rdf in the user's Thunderbird profile. I typically create a
default localstore.rdf by opening Thunderbird with a new profile, and
copying the file from there into our deployment server.
When installing/updating Thunderbird, that file just gets copied into
the Default User Thunderbird profile, and any other profiles on the
workstations.
Overwriting this file might not work for you, since it will change
toolbar positions, window size/position, etc. A Diff/Patch approach
might be a better option.
Timo Pietilä
Or just deploy using a script that temporarily copies that file to safe
place and restores it after upgrading has happened. Or does the format
of the file change?
I need to check that. This alone is great help for upgrading, thanks.
There is still the problem that TB3 has bugs and is not very stable yet,
and TB2 has security hole that apparently gets never fixed. This is very
very bad for Thunderbird reputation.
Developers! note this:
In corporate environments new stuff gets never ever installed at X.0
stage, because experience has told that new stuff is never as stable as
old for few first versions of new product. Corporates use stuff that a)
works, b) is stable. New features are not concern of us. If it works
there is no point replacing it unless new version offers something that
users would need. This is not the case with TB3.
In fact I don't see any reason to upgrade to TB3 at all. I use TB2 at
work, rock solid, no bugs, works like a charm, and TB3 at home because I
needed to see if it is any worth, slow, uses huge amount of additional
disk space, I haven't found any features yet that makes me want to
upgrade. In fact, if there weren't that security issue I would revert
back to TB2 for home machine too.
Timo Pietilä
Martin Jungowski
> Developers! note this:
>
> In corporate environments new stuff gets never ever installed at X.0
> stage, because experience has told that new stuff is never as stable as
> old for few first versions of new product. Corporates use stuff that a)
> works, b) is stable. New features are not concern of us. If it works
> there is no point replacing it unless new version offers something that
> users would need. This is not the case with TB3.
>
> In fact I don't see any reason to upgrade to TB3 at all. I use TB2 at
> work, rock solid, no bugs, works like a charm, and TB3 at home because I
> needed to see if it is any worth, slow, uses huge amount of additional
> disk space, I haven't found any features yet that makes me want to
> upgrade. In fact, if there weren't that security issue I would revert
> back to TB2 for home machine too.
Amen to that!
I'm currently facing that exact same problem: we need to migrate ~1,200
users from Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 to Thunderbird 3.0. At least that's what
I initially thought was necessary but I'm beginning to think it may not
be possible at all. I'm starting to rephrase this entire project, it has
now become "migrating away from Thunderbird".
The indexing and offline folders are indeed our biggest concern. We run
a very server-centric environment with hundreds of thin clients
connected via XDMCP sessions to a more or less powerful server. I
remember how slow my computer became when Thunderbird first started
indexing gigabytes of mails and I really don't want to be near a phone
when we first deploy TB3 on one of our servers. Same goes for
Thunderbird's bad habit of downloading every message, only topped by its
persistency to do so. There are two (!) different settings that I found
need to be changed in order for Thunderbird to finally stop this
nonsense. The new user inteface, with header pane buttons that can only
be disabled by installing an add-on for each user (wtf?) and tabs that
are enabled by default and cannot be disabled completely (again: wtf?)
completes the top three on our Thunderbird-clusterfuck-list.
Thunderbird might be great for home users, no doubt about that, but
corporate use is a different issue. And with its current setup and
problems there is absolutely no way that we'll ever migrate from
Thunderbird 2 to Thunderbird 3.
Martin
--
Rieke Computersysteme GmbH
Hellerholz 5
D-82061 Neuried
Telefon: +49 (0) 89/755099-41
Telefax: +49 (0) 89/45237-399
Mobil: +49 (0) 172/2102355
Email: mar...@rhm.de
HRB Muenchen 73617
klint
- Open a full thread in a tab (using the Gmail Conversation View
addon)
- Global search
- Full-fledged calendar management with new Lighting addon (requires
TB3)
- Mails in tabs
- Less resource consumption
These alone were sufficient drivers for migration.
My 5cts!
Wayne Mery
> - Less resource consumption
klint, can you elaborate on that point?
--
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing
http://www.spreadthunderbird.com/aff/165/
klint
and at home (4 years old Celeron on XP), I've noted that less memory
is consumed than in TB2, and the overall response time is better. With
one exception : the folder panel is redrawn with some latency with the
Celeron, and the time to display a message is a little bit longer than
in TB2, but still acceptable (I have seen some posts complaining about
unbearable response times with TB3, but that is not my own
experience).
Of course, you should wait for and test the next version to be
released very soon (before the end of the month), TB3.01, correcting a
lot of youth issues, and hopefully all migration issues met so far
(they were some...)
Last, to be honest, I'm not using TB3 at work as the official
corporate tool (it is Outlook 2003), so I have no experience about
rolling out TB3 to a large number of users.
Hope this helps anyway.
Nicolas Cuissard
Hi all,
I'm dealing with the same issues, this is what I did so far:
* Preventing indexation : set the preference
"mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled" to "false"
* Preventing offline synchronization for IMAP account : for each
account, set the preference "mail.server.<server_id>.offline_download"
to "false".
Do do that, the easiest way is to use the "autoconfig" which allow you
to force setting on a system-level bassis and not on user-lever. It's
very simple, you need to deploy two files (works on linux too) :
* "%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Thunderbird\defaults\pref\oldschool.js"
containing :
pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);
pref("general.config.filename", "oldschool.cfg");
* "%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Thunderbird\oldschool.cfg" containing :
//
/* This will disable indexation */
lockPref("mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled", false);
/* This will parse the prefs.js and disable "offline_download" for each
IMAP account */
if (getPref("mail.accountmanager.accounts")) {
var listExistingAccounts = getPref("mail.accountmanager.accounts");
var arrayExistingAccounts = listExistingAccounts.split(',');
for (var i=0; i < arrayExistingAccounts.length; i++) {
var serverFromAccount = getPref("mail.account." +
arrayExistingAccounts[i] + ".server");
var configType = getPref("mail.server." + serverFromAccount +
".type");
if (configType == "imap") {
lockPref("mail.server." + serverFromAccount +
".offline_download", false);
}
}
}
I'm still investigating a way to disable smart folders automatically but
as far as it's not managed in the "prefs.js" (but "localstore.rdf") this
is far more tricky.
Regards,
Nicolas
Alex Schumann
the default for new accounts as well:
lockPref("mail.server.default.offline_download", false);
Add that near the other lockPref at the top.
-Alex
On Jan 25, 3:51 am, Nicolas Cuissard <cuiss...@nospam.univ-paris1.fr>
wrote:
Wayne Mery
Martin,
Have you considered a more "engaged" approach? Have you seen
* https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:UX/Priorities/3.1 (rounding out
of v3)
*
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/StatusMeetings/2010-02-09#Roundtable (LU
engagement)
* http://ascher.ca/blog/2009/11/20/dear-isps/ (outreach to ISPs)
Nicolas Cuissard
>> I'm dealing with the same issues, this is what I did so far:
>>
>> * Preventing indexation : set the preference
>> "mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled" to "false"
>>
>> * Preventing offline synchronization for IMAP account : for each
>> account, set the preference
>> mail.server.<server_id>.offline_download" to "false".
>>
>> Do do that, the easiest way is to use the "autoconfig" which allow
>> you to force setting on a system-level bassis and not on
>> user-lever. It's very simple, you need to deploy two files (works
>> on linux too) :
>>
>> * "%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Thunderbird\defaults\pref\oldschool.js"
>> containing :
>>
>> pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);
>> pref("general.config.filename", "oldschool.cfg");
>>
>> * "%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Thunderbird\oldschool.cfg" containing :
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> I'm still investigating a way to disable smart folders
>> automatically but as far as it's not managed in the "prefs.js" (but
>> "localstore.rdf") this is far more tricky.
>
> This ALMOST worked for us, we needed to add one more line, to change
> the default for new accounts as well:
>
> lockPref("mail.server.default.offline_download", false);
>
> Add that near the other lockPref at the top.
Thanks!
Here is a quick update on how to disable Smart Folders.
To disable them for every new profile created, replace the file
"%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Thunderbird\defaults\profile\localstore.rdf" with :
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<RDF:RDF xmlns:NC="http://home.netscape.com/NC-rdf#"
xmlns:RDF="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<RDF:Description
RDF:about="chrome://messenger/content/messenger.xul#folderTree"
mode="all" />
<RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://messenger/content/messenger.xul">
<NC:persist
RDF:resource="chrome://messenger/content/messenger.xul#folderTree"/>
</RDF:Description>
</RDF:RDF>
These could be easily achieved by deploying this file after the
installation of Thunderbird.
When Thunderbird is launched for the first under a user session with no
previous configuration, it will use this file and copy it on the profile
so the user won't have Smart Folders enabled.
Unfortunately, this won't *override* existing "localstore.rdf" in
existing profiles...
In our production environment, the profile is stored in a "known" path
that we have fixed with the Profile Manager so we know exactly were the
file is and we'll be able to replace it with no problem.
But for people who use the classic behavior of Thunderbird, it is stored
in a random directory in the user profile
(%APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\<radom_name>) and a don't know a simple
way to get the profile's path.
The most direct solution is to parse the
"%APPDATA%\Thunderbird\profile.ini" file but I don't think these could
be achieved with the autoconfig mechanism, an external script is needed.
All the best,
Nicolas
Nicolas Cuissard
Nicolas Cuissard
>> I'm dealing with the same issues, this is what I did so far:
>>
>> * Preventing indexation : set the preference
>> "mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled" to "false"
>>
>> * Preventing offline synchronization for IMAP account : for each
>> account, set the preference
>> mail.server.<server_id>.offline_download" to "false".
>>
>> Do do that, the easiest way is to use the "autoconfig" which allow
>> you to force setting on a system-level bassis and not on
>> user-lever. It's very simple, you need to deploy two files (works
>> on linux too) :
>>
>> * "%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Thunderbird\defaults\pref\oldschool.js"
>> containing :
>>
>> pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);
>> pref("general.config.filename", "oldschool.cfg");
>>
>> * "%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Thunderbird\oldschool.cfg" containing :
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> I'm still investigating a way to disable smart folders
>> automatically but as far as it's not managed in the "prefs.js" (but
>> "localstore.rdf") this is far more tricky.
>
> This ALMOST worked for us, we needed to add one more line, to change
> the default for new accounts as well:
>
> lockPref("mail.server.default.offline_download", false);
>
> Add that near the other lockPref at the top.
Thanks!
Nicolas Cuissard
> This ALMOST worked for us, we needed to add one more line, to change
> the default for new accounts as well:
>
> lockPref("mail.server.default.offline_download", false);
>
> Add that near the other lockPref at the top.
Thanks!