[Ham-Mac] iTunes

[Russell Finn]

On Feb 19, 2006, at 10:01 PM, harris ruben wrote:

> "...this discussion started because it was claimed that the new  
> version of iTunes "still" does not allow you to repair permissions,  
> a problem I, and a lot of other users have not heard of before."
>
> And this is still true. I'm running a g5 iMac under 10.3.9, and  
> also the 6.0.3 version of iTunes.
> I STILL must remove iTunes.pkg and iTunes4.pkg from the Receipts  
> folder first, then repair permissions, and finally replace the  
> 2 .pkg files when I'm done.
>
> And my question was, if I upgrade to Tiger, will that upgrade  
> automatically fix this problem? Or, what if I just remove all the  
> iTunes files and receipts and trash them, and download iTunes  
> freshly? How would you do a clean uninstall of iTunes in the first  
> place?

Perhaps the fact that the people who've never had this problem are  
all running Tiger would suggest an answer...  :-)

More specifically, why are you replacing those files if they cause  
you problem?  Why not just trash them?  (And why are you repairing  
your permissions so frequently anyway?  Contrary to popular belief,  
it's not a preventative maintenance operation; it's only necessary if  
you're experiencing permissions-related problems, such as programs  
that won't launch.)

You might also see the discussion here:  <http://macintouch.com/ 
readerreports/itunes6_0_2/topic1991.html>, in which one person  
suggests that removing iTunes.pkg alone is sufficient.  But removing  
both iTunes.pkg and iTunes4.pkg should not cause any problems.  If  
you really wanted to "uninstall" iTunes (by throwing away the iTunes  
application from the /Applications folder) and reinstall it from a  
fresh copy, you could, but I wouldn't think that would be necessary.

If you upgrade to Tiger via an "Archive and Install" operation,  
you'll get a fresh /Library/Receipts folder.  If you do a plain  
upgrade, you may or may not; I don't know for sure (I usually do  
"Archive and Install").  Either way the iTunes permissions problem  
appears to be gone in Tiger.  (Come on in, the water's fine...)

Good luck.

-- Russ, K3RSF