Restore Missing Bookmarks in Firefox 2.0

Recently a friend of mine complaint about missing bookmarks after installing Firefox 2.0. Actually the bookmarks are NOT lost. Firefox keeps all bookmarks and extensions in the profile folder in Application Data (C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\).

In this case the installer isn’t exiting Firefox processes properly and not updating some of the old files. For Firefox versions 1.5 and above, it automatically create 5 most recent backups in bookmark backups folder, you can restore your bookmarks by either copying the bookmark backup to your profile folder or by importing bookmarks from the backup copy via the Firefox Bookmarks Manager.

According to Ill-Mannered Grandiloquence weblog, there are two ways to fix this:

1. Uninstall Firefox, delete the install folder (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\ by default) and install Firefox 2 again. Everything will be back to normal, including the bookmarks. This will not cause any loss of any other personal data. That data along with bookmarks are kept in the profile folder in Application Data.
2. Install Firefox again using the custom install option and chose to install it to a new folder. Again, no loss of personal data as this installation will still detect and use your existing profiles.

Until the bug is fixed, what you can do to avoid this problem closing Firefox before running the installer.