Hello beautiful peoples!
Sometime ago I’ve noticed that my preferred e-mail client was updated from version 102.15.1 to version 115 codename Supernova. When I say “noticed” I mean it auto-updated itself and upon a reboot I was presented with the latest version. I tried giving it a go BUT I absolutely hate it for several reasons which I will not be listing in this post.
I decided to reinstall the previous version. Simple right? Just uninstall current version, download Thunderbird 102.15.1 and reinstall. Wrong…
Thankfully I did a backup of my profile shortly before the excrement hit the oscillator. I like my E-Mail client configured JUST SO and getting it there took me a very long time. I decided to restore everything.
I have closed the Thunderbird application. Made sure its not running in the background using Task Manager.
I have uninstalled the Thunderbird application.
Removed the Thunderbird profile which by default is stored in:
C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\PROFILENAME.default
YourUserName and PROFILENAME will be different for everyone obviously.
I have restored my profile from backup into the:
C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\
I have downloaded Thunderbird 102.15.1 and installed it.
It picked up my profile right up and everything was peachy BUT I wanted to make sure IT WILL NOT automatically update itself without me asking for it.
Close Thunderbird. Make sure its closed. Kill it in Task Manager if needed.
To kill the updates functionality I right clicked on the Start Menu and chose Run
I then typed in Regedit and clicked OK
Paste this in the address bar:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies
Right click on Policies – select New > Key – type it Mozilla
Right click on Mozilla – select New > Key – type it Thunderbird
Your structure should now look like this:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Mozilla\Thunderbird
Right click on Thunderbird select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value
In the pane on the right You will notice a new entry called New Value #1
Type in DisableAppUpdate as its name
Double click on it and change it’s Value data: to 1 and click OK.
Finally You should have something that looks like this:
Open Your Thunderbird and click on Help > About Thunderbird
You should now see this message: Updates disabled by your system administrator
IF in the future You find Yourself wanting to upgrade Your Thunderbird You will need to delete the DisableAppUpdate value you have created and then open Your Thunderbird and click on Help > About Thunderbird.
I know that its to late for some of You and that You already updated Thunderbird without backing up the profile. As far as I know You’re SoL… You have three choices. Learn to live with Supernova OR remove Your profile, start fresh with Thunderbird 102 and make sure You’re not caught with Your hand in the potty again by applying the above fix before You configure everything… OR find a different E-Mail client.
I hope this helps!
Catch you on the flip side,
AndrzejL
Hi Andrzej, you and I seem to be in a minority of haters of Supernova.
In my case it’s basically along the lines of “If I had wanted the Outlook UI, I’d be using Outlook already”.
In the meantime I’ve been able to tame Supernova down to a more or less usable configuration, but I was curious about your own motives, if you care to share some.
Thanks in advance
Hello Mauro, thank You for Your comment.
For me its been a matter of bugs and changes in functionality and looks. I managed to fix some of them by searching online, however there were few that I could not fix. I wasn’t going to re-configure my e-mail client from scratch to test if it was a problem with my configuration so I downgraded and everything went back to normal.
Issues that I’ve not been able to overcome were:
– I would start typing an e-mail and the text would lag. I would type in a full sentence and the text would appear after few seconds (not while I was typing it)
– Unread messages in my Inbox would not show up until I clicked on the Inbox
– While using imap I would mark message as read in one Thunderbird instance (which usually marked them as read in other ones too) but with Supernova – I had to mark them as read in every instance (which sometimes wasn’t easy – I would click on the message and it would stay unread until I marked the entire folder read).
– Several other more or less annoying issues that were doing my head in
Cheers.
Andrzej
So you are both not the only Supernova haters out there, I personally ditched 115 by exploiting the Portapps framework to create a will never be updated to 115 portable version of Thunderbird which so far has never ended up getting updated to the worst pile of crap ever to come out of an dev team….
If you fancy testing it out I’ve got it on Github at https://github.com/mort666/stormhen-portable
Hey Bud.
I am good with BetterBird portable and with the locked version of Thunderbird install but its good to know that we are not alone on this battlefield! I am sure many people will try Your Frankenbird 😉.
Cheers.
Andrzej
THANKS! I have had too many problems with other programs I had to re-learn during the years, I don’t want to have to reconfigure TB too. And I don’t want to click on the update button by mistake.
I know that’s jus ME, and that they have solid reasons for rewriting the stuff (not for changing the look…). But the one thing that annoys me supremely is that they had repeatedly promised before releasing supernova,
1) you’ll be able to easily keep the old preferences you have (Alessandro I think mentioned one button, live new look, previous look)
2) you’ll have the opportunity to easily go back to previous versions
And that on all forums it’s proved that both are lies. I am so mad. And sure I don’t want to update by mistake and see how many more lies they have spread.
You’re very welcome 😉.
Cheers.
Andrzej