Make Netscape not use Mozilla's profile dir

Gilles · Post by **Gilles** » April 3rd, 2003, 3:14 pm

Quick hack to have Netscape 7 use a different profile dir than Mozilla:

Win32:

Open xpcom.dll in your favorite hexadecimal editor.
Search for the string "Mozilla"
Replace it by whatever you want but with the same number of letters
(Edit)For 7.1, replace the second occurence it by whatever you want but with the same number of letters
Save.
Done.

Linux/x86:

Open libxpcom.so in your favorite hexadecimal editor. (7.1 : editing libxpcom_compat.so might be necessary too - not tested)
Search for the string ".mozilla"
Replace the instances by whatever you want but with the same number of letters (there should be 3 iirc)
Save.
Done.

Mac OS X (7.1):

Show the package contents of Netscape
Drag Content/MacOS/libxpcom.dylib to your favorite hexadecimal editor. (I used <a href="http://ex-cinder.com/hexeditor.html">HexEditor</a>)
Search for the string "Mozilla"
Replace the second occurence it by whatever you want but with the same number of letters
Save.
Done.

Netscape 7 will now use a different profile dir than Mozilla. No more profile sharing problems.

Typical disclaimer: use it at your own risk... blablabla.... make backups...blablabla...set computer on fire...blablabla...end of the world...blablabla

cdn · Post by **cdn** » April 3rd, 2003, 3:39 pm

works fine, khexedit is good for this [ backed up first - just to be sure : ) ]

there are about 3 instances of '.mozilla'

replaced by '.netscap'

nice tip

aaron · Post by **aaron** » April 14th, 2003, 10:59 am

i'm having a little trouble with this working on windows 2000. could you offer any help?

Gilles · Post by **Gilles** » April 21st, 2003, 2:32 am

Sure.
What troubles ?

aaron · Post by **aaron** » April 21st, 2003, 4:20 pm

sorry, i got it all figured out now. thanks

aaron · Post by **aaron** » April 21st, 2003, 4:21 pm

any chance the folks over at netscape will modify netscape 7 so that it doesn't use mozilla's profile directory since you can't use a mozilla profile for netscape and vice versa?

willll · Post by **willll** » April 21st, 2003, 6:19 pm

aaron wrote:any chance the folks over at netscape will modify netscape 7 so that it doesn't use mozilla's profile directory since you can't use a mozilla profile for netscape and vice versa?

that would be cool, but it doesn't seem to be happening.

Gilles · Post by **Gilles** » April 22nd, 2003, 2:05 am

iirc the reason behind that was to let Netscape people use the same profile for Mozilla and Netscape for testing purpose.

aaron · Post by **aaron** » June 30th, 2003, 2:06 pm

Hi, I just dloaded Netscape 7.1 for my fiancee (she uses Netscape and I use Mozilla). Previously, she had Netscape 7.02 and I used Mozilla 1.3 (I'm gonna dload Mozilla 1.4). I had applied the fix to make Netscape and Mozilla use different profile directories, but I noticed that I couldn't get it to work with Netscape 7.1 -- it didn't even install xpcom.dll..... any suggestions? I am really going to need a fix for this before I put Netscape 7.1 on again (already uninstalled it because it couldn't use the different profile directory) and I would really like her to have the extra functionality that 7.1 offers over 7.02. Any help will *****REALLY***** be appreciated!! Thank you in advance for your time

Gilles · Post by **Gilles** » June 30th, 2003, 2:25 pm

The xpcom.dll is now with the GRE installation directory.
i.e. c:\program files\common files\Mozilla.org\GRE\1.4f_2003062408

Now, I don't use the Mozilla installer (which also install a Gecko Runtime Environment) so I don't kwow what happens if you have several GREs installed.

Post by **nosebleed** » June 30th, 2003, 2:44 pm

Do you have to edit the Mozilla xpcom.dll or the Netscape xpcom.dll?

BTW, What's a hexadecimal editor? (Will Notepad/Wordpad work?)

Gilles · Post by **Gilles** » June 30th, 2003, 3:04 pm

nosebleed wrote:Do you have to edit the Mozilla xpcom.dll or the Netscape xpcom.dll?

Either of them. I did modify the Netscape one since I find it's more logical to do so.

nosebleed wrote:BTW, What's a hexadecimal editor?

It's an editor that allows you to edit a file byte per byte.

nosebleed wrote:(Will Notepad/Wordpad work?)

I doubt Notepad or Wordpad would work.
There are some free ones here : http://directory.google.com/Top/Compute ... x_Editors/

Post by **nosebleed** » June 30th, 2003, 3:17 pm

OK, I have only one xpcom.dll and I changed the first Mozilla that the hex editor came upon but they still both use the same directory! (?!)

Any help is appreciated, please.

Gilles · Post by **Gilles** » June 30th, 2003, 4:03 pm

For that new release, it appears that you have to change the second occurance of Mozilla (the case is important, you have to look for Mozilla not mozilla or MOZILLA).

More precisely it is the one at offset 0x61464.

aaron · Post by **aaron** » June 30th, 2003, 4:49 pm

if someone could test out the install version of mozilla 1.4 and netscape 7.1 using the new hack that giles talked about and post their results that would be great!!! i really want to upgrade to 1.4 and get my finacee up to 7.1 and want to keep it with different profile directory...

or could i just alter the shortcuts so they point to the respective profiles? would that work???