Difference between revisions of "Picasa"

Revision as of 13:23, 4 March 2014

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 installs by default into %PROGRAMFILES%\Google\Picasa3 (on 32-bit versions of Windows), or %PROGRAMFILES(X86)% (on 64-bit versions of Windows).

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.

Command-line Switches

• /S - silent install and uninstall
• /L - don't launch Picasa after install
• /L2 - don't add a desktop shortcut

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"/>

  <!-- The uninstaller terminates before the files have actually been deleted and the registry updated, so WPKG thinks
the app is still installed despite the uninstaller seeming to finish successfully. WPKG will then reinstall the app on 
the next run, then uninstall it. If we wait before allowing WPKG to run its 'check' on 'uninstall' then everything will 
be OK. See http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.package-management.wpkg.user/8411 -->
  <remove cmd='%COMSPEC% /C ping -n 30 127.0.0.1 1>NUL 2>NUL' >
    <exit code="any" />
  </remove>

</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)

Note that you might require the Google Updater Service for updating other Google software, such as Google Chrome.

You can disable the Google Updater Service using 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
"%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\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