the plugin folder is in %appdata%\Mozilla\plugins

Thanks madperson. I must be a dufus here because I am not seeing it on the Win7 operating system. Can you supply the full path? In your reply, what do the percent signs mean?

The file structure and some folder names have changed going from XP to Win7.

you can press windows key + r and open "%appdata%\Mozilla\plugins" in it

the full path would be C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\plugins

After C\:...........Roaming\Mozilla I only have two folders, Extensions and Firefox. Extensions is empty and Firefox folder has two folders, Crash reports and Profiles. Profiles has one folder called fyfqdpy6.default but nothing in there called Plugins.

In Tools/Addons/Plugins there are plugins listed that came by default when I installed FF12 so I wonder where they are installed.

 Hummmm?

On Windows, common plugins are located via plugin scanning; other plugins are detected if found in the Mozilla browser installation directory "plugins" folder (e.g., in Firefox, C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins) or if found in the %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Plugins folder (which does not exist by default). http://kb.mozillazine.org/Issues_related_to_plugins#Background

the flash plugin for example normally sits in a subfolder of C:\windows...

Ok, so where would you suggest I install my Plugin since I have no Plugins Folder? Create a Plugin folder after C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\? Or, create a plugins folder in the Installation directory?

Thanks for your help.

i'd recommend the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\ location (as you said, just create the folder named 'Plugins' manually), since other mozilla based applications - like portable versions of firefox or prerelease builds - can access those plugins then too.

Try using the C:\Program Files\Firefox\ folder (or whatever the name of the folder is where Firefox is installed) and create the \plugins\ folder there. That folder needs to be at the same level as firefox.exe in order for Firefox to find it and use the contents of that folder!

That's where I have always created that folder, since Firefox 4; never saw a "plugins" folder in App Data, but I haven't tried - don't know for sure if it will work there, but I doubt it.

why would you doubt that - i've provided a link to the source (mozillazine kb) & explained the reasoning behind it?! every plugin that sits in the %appdata%\Mozilla\plugins folder will work for every firefox installation you execute in your user context (portable versions, a seperate aurora installation etc...) and not only the ones which have it in their program folder.

before bluntly dismissing it, you should better give it a try!

"Bluntly dimissing "??

I said "try".

Sorry, my confidence level in the MozillaZine KB isn't the strongest - many articles haven't been updated in years. There isn't any notation about the changes to plugin handling that came about in Firefox 4.0 (the folder being removed completely), nor the changes to plugin handling started with Firefox 3.6 (plugin installers no longer being able to just "drop" DLL's into the \plugins\ folder). Unfortunately the "last modified" date at the bottom of the articles applies to the whole page, not particular paragraphs, so there's no way of knowing how long it has been since that "Background" paragraph was edited.

IIRC, I haven't seen a Plugins folder in an AppData path, but then again I use WinXP which doesn't have a "roaming" folder path as Vista and Win7 have, and I don't have access to a customer's PC to test that out right now.

As far a Portable Firefox goes, is the \Data\plugins\ folder the same as AppData?

it works at least since 2002 and doesn't depend on roaming profiles (so it's the same on xp) - also see bug 172891 if you need further reference

First I tried the method of creating a plugin folder after C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\ and installed my plugin there. The plugin did not appear in the Addons Manager nor did my mapping website work (got message about missing plugin). Even tried rebooting but no go.

Then I created a plugin folder after C:\Program files (X86)\Mozilla Firefox, installed plugin and it appears in the Addons Manager and my mapping website works, well almost. It's having difficulty downloading a number of map layers but I am blaming that on the mapping website as it has been an intermittent problem on my old XP OS as well.

Thanks to all that provided help.

You can also create a plugins folder (notice the trailing 's') in the Firefox Profile Folder and store the plugin in that folder. That will only install the plugin for that specific profile.