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):
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.