Difference between revisions of "Picasa"

Revision as of 12:30, 13 December 2011

Google Picasa is a photo album and editing tool. Download it from http://picasa.google.com/. When new versions are released they're available from picasa.google.com (where the filename is picasa<version>-setup.exe) before they are from the likes of picasa.google.co.uk (where the filename is picasaweb-current-setup.exe).

Readme: picasa-readme.blogspot.com/

Picasa is not that easy to silently install. Mainly because it forks processes after installation which have to be terminated. Therefore you need the Microsoft Taskkill command installed for it to work.

Picasa 3.x

Picasa 3 by default installs to %PROGRAMFILES%\Google\Picasa3.

Silently installing Picasa 3 when Picasa 2 is installed will automatically remove Picasa 2.

Picasa 3 doesn't include the Picasa Media Detector included with earlier versions.

Note that Picasa uninstall will open a web browser to ask for feedback.

WPKG Package

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<packages>

<package id='Picasa' name='Picasa' revision='3' priority='3' reboot='false' >

  <check type='uninstall' condition='exists' path='Picasa 3' />

  <install cmd='"%SOFTWARE%\Picasa\picasa39-setup.exe" /S /L' >
    <exit code='1' />
    <exit code='128' />
  </install>

  <upgrade cmd='"%SOFTWARE%\Picasa\picasa39-setup.exe" /S /L' >
    <exit code='1' />
    <exit code='128' />
  </upgrade>

  <remove cmd="%PROGRAMFILES%\Google\Picasa3\Uninstall.exe /S"/>

</package>

</packages>

Auto Update

Picasa's auto update feature defaults to 'update automatically'. For administrators or Power Users, when they first run Picasa it auto updates without prompting, even before you've managed to run it for the first time. For Limited user accounts, this setting causes it to prompt the user, asking if they want to update.

The automatic update feature can be turned off in various ways:

GUI (Per-user)

Tools → Options → General → Automatic Updates → Don't check for updates

Registry (Per-user)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Picasa\Picasa2\Preferences\AutoUpgradeCheck=dword:00000000
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Picasa\Picasa2\Preferences\AutoUpgradeAsk=dword:00000000

(Note that even Picasa 3 creates / uses this Picasa 2 registry key, rather than creating a new Picasa 3 key)

Google Updater Service (system-wide)

Either:

Change the Startup Mode of the Google Updater service:

sc config gusvc start= disabled

Uninstall the Google Updater service:

"%PROGRAMFILES%\Google\Common\Google Updater\GoogleUpdaterService" /UnregServer

References:

• http://www.internetbestsecrets.com/2008/04/google-updater-service.html
• http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/12/google-updater-service.html
• http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/10/invisible-googleupdateexe.html

Picasa 2

Picasa 2 installs to %PROGRAMFILES%\Picasa2. Changing this with installer options causes Picasa to install into repetitive %PROGRAMFILES%\Picasa2\Picasa2\Picasa2\... directories.

Use the following to perform a silent installation of Picasa 2.x:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<packages>

<package id='Picasa' name='Picasa' revision='2' priority='3' reboot='false' >
  <check type='uninstall' condition='exists' path='Picasa 2' />

  <install cmd='"%SOFTWARE%\Picasa\picasa2-setup.exe" /S' >

  <install cmd='cmd /C taskkill /F /IM Picasa2.exe' >
    <exit code='1' />
    <exit code='128' />
  </install>

  <install cmd='cmd /C taskkill /F /IM PicasaMediaDetector.exe' >
    <exit code='1' />
    <exit code='128' />
  </install>

  <upgrade cmd='"%SOFTWARE%\Picasa\picasa2-setup.exe" /S' />

  <upgrade cmd='cmd /C taskkill /F /IM Picasa2.exe' >
    <exit code='1' />
    <exit code='128' />
  </upgrade>

  <upgrade cmd='cmd /C taskkill /F /IM PicasaMediaDetector.exe' >
    <exit code='1' />
    <exit code='128' />
  </upgrade>

  <remove cmd="%PROGRAMFILES%\picasa2\Uninstall.exe /S"/>
</package>

</packages>

The uninstall option may need testing.

Picasa Media Detector

Picasa Media Detector is part of Picasa 2. You can disable Picasa Media Detector with the following:

Picasa 2.7 Build 37.29(?) and later

These versions had the media detector load for each specific user from their HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

  <upgrade cmd='cmd /C reg delete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v "Picasa Media Detector" /f' />
  <install cmd='cmd /C reg delete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v "Picasa Media Detector" /f' />

Picasa 2.7 Build 37.23(?) and Earlier

These versions had the media detector load for all users from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

  <upgrade cmd='cmd /C reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v "Picasa Media Detector" /f' />
  <install cmd='cmd /C reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v "Picasa Media Detector" /f' />