Creating a Localized Installer

Since Firefox 0.8 the way in which the installer builds are packaged on Windows has changed. To create a localized installer you must now perform the following steps.

1 - Install the Software

You need to get 7-Zip and UPX. Make sure both installation directories are in your system PATH.

2 - Download the Installer

Download the Firefox self extracting installer from mozilla.org.

3 - Download Installer Stub Resources

Download app.tag and 7dSD.sfx.

4 - Extract the Contents

Open the 7-Zip file manager, browse to the folder that you saved FirefoxSetup-0.9.1.exe into, select that file and then click "Extract". Choose a location to extract to, I suggest a folder with nothing else in it, and then extract.

5 - Localize Firefox

Localize the installer XPIs/config.ini file as you normally would.

6 - Localize the 7-Zip Stub (optional)

Using a utility like Resource Hacker or Microsoft Visual C++, edit the resources in the 7zSD.sfx file that you downloaded earlier to localize.

7 - Set up the Stage Directory

Create a directory called "stage" inside the directory you extracted the XPIs to and copy 7zSD.sfx and app.tag into it.

8 - Repackage

Open a console window and change directory to the location you have all the localized xpis in. Run these commands (Note: these assume you have 7-Zip in your PATH):

7z a -t7z stage\app.7z *.* -mx -m0=BCJ2 -m1=LZMA:d24 -m2=LZMA:d19 -m3=LZMA:d19 -mb0:1 -mb0s1:2 -mb0s2:3
cd stage
upx -9 7zSD.sfx
copy /b 7zSD.sfx+app.tag+app.7z FirefoxSetup-0.9.1-YOUR LANGUAGE.exe
cd ..

(You may like to save these commands into a batch file for easier use in the future)

... this process may take a few minutes depending on the speed of your hardware. What will be generated is a file called FirefoxSetup-0.9.1-YOUR LANGUAGE.exe which is your localized installer. Double click it to test it, and away you go.

Ben Goodger 06/29/2004.

Mozilla