Ask toolbar installer bug

[MiG_]

Looks like in the latest version there still is a path possible where the consent form does not appear when the install runs.

 

I did find a dozen threads mentioning the toolbar with various answers but after a bit of poking I think I've tracked it down.

If you do a *fresh* install (i.e. no ImgBurn present on your system), you'll see the familiar screen asking you whether or not you want a toolbar (which you can then modify or untick).

If you do an *upgrade* however, it never appears, and as it's ticked by default, the ask installer runs unopposed, and afterward, to my surprise, firefox suddenly asked if I wanted an ask toolbar (which for me, never having seen the permission screen, briefly had intrusion alarm bells ringing).

 

In short: somehow the installer skips the ask toolbar permission screen when it finds an ImgBurn already present on the system, and then proceeds with default values instead of previously specified ones (i.e. it installs the toolbar). Does this at least on my WinXP x86 SP3, with ImgBurn v2.5.6.0.

 

 

*EDIT*

Something odd is going on here. If I try to reproduce the problem more often I *do* get the ask toolbar permissions screen. As I prefer not to have toolbars and such on my system I'm quite alert during installations, so its appearance is not exactly something I'd not notice

Could it be that this only happens when upgrading from and to certain versions?

Edited December 4, 2011 by MiG_

[LIGHTNING UK!]

All the toolbar threads are quite old now - I've rewritten all the toolbar code in the installer since people first mentioned it was installing without consent - it wasn't even really doing it then, but the 'hang' whilst the consent page was displayed made people get click happy and it ended up just flashing by.

 

Nope, none of that toolbar code is anything to do with upgrading from and to certain versions.

 

The installer starts by setting a variable to 0. It can't ever be anything other than 0 unless the toolbar consent page is shown, the checkboxes remain checked and the user clicks the 'Next' button.

Only when that variable is set to 1 does the toolbar get installed.

 

There's nothing more I can do to it.

[MiG_]

That's the thing I'm afraid... I *never* mindlessly click through installers as there's always something I don't want to include, or a file association that I'd like to change (I even scroll through user agreements as some of the larger companies like to include funny stuff). But as the issue turns out to be a non reproducible one off (at least so far), I guess not much can be done in the way of debugging. If I encounter it again and it's reliably reproducible, I'll bump this thread. Thanks for now.

Edited December 5, 2011 by MiG_

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Like I said, the problem before was that the install hung (became unresponsive) for a while before the consent page ever showed up - and people were having multiple clicks logged against the 'next' button because it wasn't progressing (maybe 'click happy' was the wrong way of putting it). That doesn't happen now I've rewritten the toolbar code and false positives should be far far lower.

 

Sometimes you won't get the toolbar consent page because the toolbar checker has determined you shouldn't get it - like when it's already installed or you don't have any supported browsers. Going by the logic I posted in my previous message, that still means it's impossible for it to get installed automatically.