Scripting : Installing Chrome Extensions via master

Installing Chrome Extensions via master_preferences

Hello everyone,

I am able to deploy Google Chrome fine, but I am having 2 problems configuring it:

1. None of my CRX files have the needed "Key" value specified in the sample seen here (view next post). Notice that there is a "KEY" with a vary long value. Googles documentation says this can be found in the JSON file of the extensions CRX. I have extracted and looked at the JSON files for a few Exstensions and had no luck finding such a value.

2. how can I copy the "master_preferences" from a network share to the users local drive via batch file? both XCOPY and Robocopy mistake "master preferences" for a folder due to it's lack of a file extension.

How is everyone doing this?? I'm not getting it.

4 Comments [ + ] Show comments

Here is the sample code shown in the Google Documentation

{
"homepage" : "http://dev.chromium.org",
"homepage_is_newtabpage" : true,
"extensions": {
"settings": {
"apflmjolhbonpkbkooiamcnenbmbjcbf": {
"location": 1,
"manifest": {
"key": "MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQC5cK3ybDkh173plsjDXoqUzvsjFRMtbc5+a8HR6dxYBETeXQ7GOR5/xYnsY2R4smo5ly4yUK69iF7rnPNH+X97K7e7JFbuH5W/ZRc8YaIG66oJ9JwKZagSOZasSJPWNz4f1GdaHD1Z4KRucvOYxsaPVdwS2W3nbG6i3oQFaio+JQIDAQAB",
"name": "Google Reader Notifier (Installing...)",
"permissions": [ "tabs", "http://www.google.com/" ],
"update_url": "http://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx",
"version": "0.0"
},
"path": "apflmjolhbonpkbkooiamcnenbmbjcbf\\0.0",
"state": 1
}
}
}
} - _blake 9 years ago
I don't have an answer because I'm trying to find out the same thing. If any figures this out I'm hoping to get an email notification for it. Basically, I created an extension from scratch. I located the ID number by installing it manually and the ID shows. I got the key when I published the app, so I immediately copied it. I followed the example script you posted above but nothing, AND I MEAN nothing worked. The updated_url no longer exist. I got this using another website that grabs the crx file for you, copying the link that downloads it. As of chrome version 33+ you can no longer store the crx locally, it has to be a published extension via a url. I hope to hear something as to how to pre-install extensions. This sucks. - arcturus 9 years ago
I figured it out.... In my case I found that google dropped support for NPAPI.... so any extension that uses this cannot be automatically installed. It has to be manually installed to make sure that the user understands the risks before installing.

https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/npapi - _blake 9 years ago
Arcturus... Google deployment is cryptic at best.... I found that you need to acutally install the extension onto a computer then navigate to

"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions"

All of your extensions have a folder here. The folders don't have a naming convention so you will have to match the folder name to the extensions corresponding url in the Chrome Web Store.

Folder
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\hehijbfgiekmjfkfjpbkbammjbdenadd

URL
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ie-tab/hehijbfgiekmjfkfjpbkbammjbdenadd

After you have matched the two up (may not be nessicary if you only have 1 extension installed). open the folder and navigate to the "manifest.json" file and open with notepad. You will now see all of the needed info to paste into your master_preferences.

It took me a LONG time to figure all of this out. I hope it helps someone else. - _blake 9 years ago