So … I finally got around to removing the Mozilla Maintenance Service from my deployment of Firefox.  It was pretty easy, but surprisingly unexplored by the blogging community.  I’m by no means calling first on this post, just saying I did it through self-discovery.

Why would I want to remove this service?  Quite simply, we have an automated process for our current roll out of Firefox updates.  Mozilla Maintenance Service is a long overdue, but unnecessary feature for my infrastructure.  Additionally, I don’t like things being installed arbitrarily.  I may investigate if I would rather use this service for silent updates of Firefox in the future.

I can boil this process down to two basic needs:

  • Block Service Install
    Prevention of future and new installs of the Mozilla Maintenance Service.
  • Silent Removal
    Silently removal of the     Mozilla Maintenance Service from systems with it already installed.

Block Service Install

Note: Thanks to Ph0neutria for helping me  determine that this doesn’t work for new installs.  It’s just for the upgrade, as the bugzilla report states.  See the comments for details.

Fresh Install

Create an .ini file to disable the install of the Mozilla Maintenance Service, as shown:
[Install]
MaintenanceService=false
Install firefox with the /INI switch, as shown (assumes the .ini file is in the same directory as the Firefox setup.exe):
Firefox Setup 22.0.exe /INI="C:FullPathtoFileFirefox.ini"

Application Update

Block Mozilla Maintenance Service from installing by running the following command BEFORE you run the Firefox Setup X.X.X.exe installer:
  • REG ADD HKLMSOFTWAREMozillaMaintenanceService /v Attempted /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Silent Removal

You can silently uninstall the Mozilla Maintenance Service with the following command:
  • x64 Systems:
    “%ProgramFiles(x86)%Mozilla Maintenance ServiceUninstall.exe” /S /v"qn"
  • x86 Systems:
    “%ProgramFiles%Mozilla Maintenance ServiceUninstall.exe” /S /v"qn"