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Re: uninstaller
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Re: uninstaller


  • Subject: Re: uninstaller
  • From: Charles Srstka <email@hidden>
  • Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 11:52:23 -0500

On Oct 23, 2004, at 5:17 AM, Karin Kosina wrote:

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 09:42:46 -0500, Jacob Chapa <email@hidden> wrote:
what would be the best way to do an uninstaller, as my application has
some data in the "Application Services" folder?

Oh boy. Uninstallers. Good topic. Beats me why Mac OS X doesn't
provide that functionality, given that they do take the effort to
store a log (in /Library/Receipts/) of everything that was installed
using the default .pkg way....

But to cut the rant short before it even starts: There are some
third-party uninstallers available. I have found DesInstaller[*] to
work pretty well...

Be aware that if you use that program, you are in danger of damaging your system. Many packages from Apple update components in /System. For example, the iChat AV 2.1 update updates several frameworks in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks. One of them is InstantMessage.framework. Why do you need InstantMessage.framework, you ask? Oh, you don't want to use instant messaging, so you don't need this framework? Well, Mail.app links against it, so if you delete it, Mail might quit working. Therefore, uninstalling iChat AV will probably kill Mail as well.

If you want another example, it is well known that Safari is tied to WebKit, so it's not surprising that the Safari updates update WebKit.framework as well. Thus, uninstalling Safari will break numerous apps that link against WebKit, such as Mail, Sherlock, Help Viewer, as well as any third-party apps that use it. However, this isn't the reason to be concerned. As it turns out, the Safari 1.2 updater updates the *Foundation framework itself*. If you were to uninstall Safari 1.2, you'd uninstall Foundation, and you'd break *every Cocoa app* on your system. What's worse, many of the internal workings of Mac OS X rely on Foundation, and frankly I doubt your computer would even start up after deleting the Foundation. So, if you did this, you'd probably have to reinstall the OS.

Do you still feel like trying to uninstall software from the receipts?

Charles

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References: 
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 >Re: uninstaller (From: Karin Kosina <email@hidden>)

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