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I want to change the location of Firefox 3.6.8 Profiles so that the same profile can be used by different Win XP User Accounts.

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  • Last reply by John Estes

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I successfully changed the Profiles storage location for versions of Firefox earlier than 3.6.8 on other computers by changing profiles.ini to point to the changed location, using the same profiles.ini file for the different user accounts. When I upgraded to 3.6.8 on this dual-boot Win Xp and Win 7 machine, the changed Profiles storage location was maintained so that all users in both operating systems are using the same profile (and same version of Firefox). I tried to use what I think was the same procedure in another Win XP machine, but when I try to open Firefox 3.6.8 installed on this machine, I get a message saying that Firefox is already running and that I need to close it to proceed.

Please explain how I can get this job done.

Thank you.

I successfully changed the Profiles storage location for versions of Firefox earlier than 3.6.8 on other computers by changing profiles.ini to point to the changed location, using the same profiles.ini file for the different user accounts. When I upgraded to 3.6.8 on this dual-boot Win Xp and Win 7 machine, the changed Profiles storage location was maintained so that all users in both operating systems are using the same profile (and same version of Firefox). I tried to use what I think was the same procedure in another Win XP machine, but when I try to open Firefox 3.6.8 installed on this machine, I get a message saying that Firefox is already running and that I need to close it to proceed. Please explain how I can get this job done. Thank you.

Chosen solution

You would have to set the profile location in profiles.ini files for both XP and Windows 7 to point to that same folder.
Easiest to accomplish that is to create a new profile and choose the location of that profile to point to that profile folder.
Make sure that you have write access in both OS to that profile folder.

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_missing_profile

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Hello.

I'm not sure this is possible in default Firefox, but I do know Firefox Portable uses a customized Profile directory, which may be just what you need in this case. It's exactly the same Firefox you know, so don't be afraid to use it, if it's what you need. Updates tend to come out a little bit later (a day's delay, usually), so be aware of that. It's basically the same thing, in my opinion, but you can be the judge of that.

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Chosen Solution

You would have to set the profile location in profiles.ini files for both XP and Windows 7 to point to that same folder.
Easiest to accomplish that is to create a new profile and choose the location of that profile to point to that profile folder.
Make sure that you have write access in both OS to that profile folder.

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_missing_profile

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Before I read this helpful post, I changed my Google search key words from "change location Firefox profiles" to "change path Firefox Profiles" and found this link: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Changing_Profile_Folder_Location. This brought me to the article "Moving Your Firefox Profile" which answered my question. Your suggested link would have ultimately led me to the same solution.

The problem was that I had copied my Firefox profile to the new location and then modified "profiles.ini" to point to the new location and saved it there as a replacement to the original "profiles.ini" that I had renamed "profiles.iniOld." Even though I had changed "IsRelative" from "=1" to "=0" I got error messages. I had used this procedure successfully before, but it would not work this time. When I used Profile Manager to move the Firefox Profiles everything worked fine the first time I tried it, and it took only a few minutes.

Thank you, cor-el.