Here’s a solution I came up with for a problem where the installed version of Cisco Unified Contact Center Express (UCCX) was version 10.0.1 which means Finesse is also version 10.0.  That version has a buggy web interface where it seems like the only browser that works reasonably well with it is Firefox version 29 or older.  This is a known bug/defect, tracked with bug id CSCup45107.  The bug id suggests TAC knows of a fix for it, but they will do everything they can to not give you that fix.  Apparently the ‘fix’ breaks the manager or reporting interfaces, making the fix pointless and not actually a fix.  Version 10.5 does resolve the issue and lets you use current browsers.

So now what do you do?  Upgrading Call Manager and UCCX is not exactly a walk in the park.

But then, as everyone knows, intentionally staying on an out of date browser version is incredibly stupid from a security perspective, and also keeps you from getting other improvements in the browser, etc.

Well, there’s one other option I came up with.  An awesome guy named John Haller founded Portable Apps back in 2004 when he started recompiling apps that normally would need to be installed on Windows into self-contained versions that could be kept on a USB stick or similar removable media.  Here’s their website:

http://portableapps.com/

So anyway, one of the most important apps that they have made portable is Firefox.  Version 29 of Firefox Portable can be found at the following link in a large variety of languages:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Mozilla%20Firefox%2C%20Portable%20Ed./Mozilla%20Firefox%2C%20Portable%20Edition%2029.0.1/

Once downloaded into a folder on your desktop, or portable media if that’s your preference, you have a couple extra steps:

1. Copy the FirefoxPortable.ini file from the sub-directory Other\Source\ into the root folder where the FirefoxPortable.exe file is located.
2. Edit the file and find the line “AllowMultipleInstances=false”.  Replace the false with true.

You will now be able to launch a self contained Firefox 29 just for use with Cisco Finesse while keeping the regular installed copy of Firefox up to date.  At the office where we did this, we also pre-configured the preferences to not check for updates, renamed the binary to Finesse.exe and set the home page to Finesse.  Once deployed to agents desktops, they just needed to be told “double click Finesse” to launch it.