Drivers not working on Windows 10 installed (CLI process) on external SSD running on Macbook I have a problem with the installation of Windows 10 (November 2019) on my MacBook Air 2018. I tried to use a virtual machine the first time, but some drivers did not work (trackpad, audio and keyboard did not work). I used this tutorial on YouTube.

So, I decided to follow this guide (using the Windows CLI) carefully, step by step, at the part "Using a Flash Drive and the Windows CLI to Install Windows 10".

My problem is at this point in step 3:

DISKPART> list volume

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     W   BOOTCAMP     NTFS   Partition    249 GB  Healthy
  Volume 1         Recovery     NTFS   Partition    800 MB  Healthy
  Volume 2     S   EFI          FAT32  Partition    200 MB  Healthy    Hidden
  Volume 3     C   WINSTALL     FAT32  Removable     29 GB  Healthy

Instead of volume WINSTALL, I see a D volume, in CD-ROM format (only 2 Gb). Without that volume, I can not continue with the installation, because the prompt does not find the image .ISO of windows contained in WINSTALL.

Before start, I followed this guide (answer #1) to prepare the SSD for the installation.
I formatted the SSD in the ExFAT format and then I copied the contents of the Windows 10 .ISO image (that I've opened with the Finder) inside the SSD (I did not create any partitions with the macOS Disk Utility application). I want to specify that in the guide a 500 Gb SSD was used and my SSD is 250 GB in size.

This is the content of my SSD before starting the process of installation.

And this is the error at the command

dism  /Get-ImageInfo /ImageFile:C:\sources\install.wim

English translation: "Error 87, parameter not correct. The image management and maintenance log file is available in X:\windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log"

Thank you so much for your time. I am available for any questions.

The answer of how to install Windows 10 to a external drive has be answered may times here at Ask Different. Most notably Is it possible to use Boot Camp with Windows 10 from an external HDD?. Enough subtle changes have been made to macOS and Windows 10, that I felt the answer should be reposted. Here, I try to incorporate the best ideas in all the other answers I have read. This answer does not require a virtual machine, optical (DVD) drive or any flash drives.

Note: When this answer was tested on a 2018 Mac mini with the T2 chip, Secure Boot and External Boot was set, as shown below. For instruction on how to configure a Mac with the T2 chip, see the Apple website About Secure Boot.

Download the latest Windows 10 ISO file from the Microsoft website Download Windows 10 Disc Image (ISO File).

Note: This answer was tested using 1909 (September 2019) update.

Download Window Support Software. Open the Boot Camp Assistant application. From the menu bar, select Action->Download Windows Support Software. By Default, the files should download to WindowsSupport folder in your home folder. When the popup shown below appears, enter your password then click on the Unlock button.

When finished, quit the Boot Camp Assistant.

Plug in the external drive. Open the Disk Utility application. In the pulldown menu in the upper left corner of the Disk Utility application, make sure Hide Sidebar is not checked off and Show All Devices is check off, as shown below.

Highlight the external drive and select the Erase button. Enter the following in the popup window, then click on the Erase button.

When finished erasing, click on the Done button. With the external drive still highlighted, click on the Partition button. Make the following changes in the order given below.

Note: The size entered below has to be large enough to create a volume that can hold the Windows ISO and Window Support Software files. The value of 16 GB should provide more that enough space. However, a smaller value can be substituted.

Click on the + button.

Enter a size of 16 GB.

Enter the name WINSTALL.

Select the ExFAT format.

The result should appear as shown below.

Click on the Apply, Partition, and Done buttons in the given order. When finished, quit the Disk Utility.

Using the Finder application, mount the Window 10 ISO file and copy the contents to the WINSTALL volume. Next copy the contents of the WindowsSupport folder to the WINSTALL volume. In your case, the result should appear as shown below.

Open a Terminal Application window and enter the following commands. These commands create labels that will eventually appear below the Mac Startup Manager external drive icons.
bless --folder /Volumes/WINSTALL/efi/boot --label "Install Windows"
mkdir /Volumes/WINSTALL/label
bless --folder /Volumes/WINSTALL/label --label "Windows"

When finished, quit the Terminal application.

Restart the Mac and immediately hold down the option key until the Startup Manager icons appear. Boot from the external drive by selecting the external drive icon labeled Install Windows.

The first window to appear should be similar to the one shown below.

Proceed as one would for a GUI installation of Windows. When a window similar to the one shown below appears, press the shift+F10 key combination.

Note: If you press the shift+F10 key combination before the image below appears, then the Windows installer may not have loaded drivers from the Windows Support Software.

The result should be the appearance of the Command Prompt window shown below.

This is the step where commands are entered to install Windows 10 Pro. For this Windows 10 ISO, a complete list of names to choose from are given below.
Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 Home N
Windows 10 Home Single Language
Windows 10 Education
Windows 10 Education N
Windows 10 Pro
Windows 10 Pro N
Windows 10 Pro Education
Windows 10 Pro Education N
Windows 10 Pro for Workstations
Windows 10 Pro N for Workstations

If you have a different Windows ISO, then a list of names can be generated by entering the command shown below after exiting the diskpart command.
dism /get-imageinfo /imagefile:t:\sources\install.wim

Below are the commands to be entered.

Note: If more that one disk appears in the list of disks, then care must be taken to select the correct disk, otherwise important data could be lost.

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 3
assign letter=t
select partition 2
delete partition
create partition msr size=16
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs label=BOOTCAMP quick
assign letter=w
select partition 1
assign letter=s
list volume
exit
dism /apply-image /imagefile:t:\sources\install.wim /name:"Windows 10 Pro" /applydir:w:\ /checkintegrity
dism /image:w:\ /add-driver /driver:t:\$WinPEDriver$ /recurse /forceunsigned
bcdboot w:\windows /l en-us /s s: /f uefi
attrib -h t:\label\*
copy t:\label\.d* s:\efi\boot
attrib +h s:\efi\boot\.d*
exit

Below is an example of the typical output from entering the above commands.

Note: In this example, Volume 3 is stored in the EFI partition on Disk 1, which is the internal drive. This partition is not used by Windows.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.418]
(c) 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

X:\Sources>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.18362.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: MINWINPC

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          465 GB   128 MB        *
  Disk 1    Online          233 GB      0 B        *

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    System             200 MB    20 KB
  Partition 2    Primary            450 GB   201 MB
  Partition 3    Primary             14 GB   450 GB

DISKPART> select partition 3

Partition 3 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> assign letter=t

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART> select partition 2

Partition 2 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> delete partition

DiskPart successfully deleted the selected partition.

DISKPART> create partition msr size=16

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

DISKPART> create partition primary

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

DISKPART> format fs=ntfs label=BOOTCAMP quick

  100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.

DISKPART> assign letter=w

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART> select partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> assign letter=s

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART> list volume

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     W   BOOTCAMP     NTFS   Partition    450 GB  Healthy
  Volume 1     T   WINSTALL     exFAT  Partition     14 GB  Healthy
* Volume 2     S   EFI          FAT32  Partition    200 MB  Healthy    Hidden
  Volume 3         EFI          FAT32  Partition    300 MB  Healthy    Hidden

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

X:\Sources>dism /apply-image /imagefile:t:\sources\install.wim /name:"Windows 10 Pro" /applydir:w:\ /checkintegrity

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.18362.1

Applying image
[==========================100.0%==========================]
The operation completed successfully.

X:\Sources>dism /image:w:\ /add-driver /driver:t:\$WinPEDriver$ /recurse /forceunsigned

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.18362.1

Image Version: 10.0.18363.418

Searching for driver packages to install...
There was a problem opening the INF file. t:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelHDGraphics64\autorun.inf Error: 0xE0000100.
Found 24 driver package(s) to install.
Installing 1 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\AppleAudio\AppleAudio.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 2 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\AppleAudio_1884106B\AppleAudio_1884106B.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 3 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\AppleBluetoothBroadcom64\AppleBTBC.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 4 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\AppleMultiTouchTrackPad64\AppleMTP64.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 5 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\AppleMultiTouchTrackPadPro64\AppleTPP64.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 6 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\AppleSSD64\AppleSSD.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 7 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\Aquantia64\aqnic650.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 8 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\BroadcomBluetoothHID64\UheBtHid.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 9 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\BroadcomBluetoothHID64\UheSerialBus.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 10 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\BroadcomWirelessUDM64\bcmwdidhdpcie.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 11 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\Dolby\swc_aposvc\dax3_swc_aposvc.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 12 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\Dolby\swc_hsa\dax3_swc_hsa.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 13 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelHDGraphics64\Graphics\cui_comp.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 14 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelHDGraphics64\Graphics\iigd_base.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 15 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelHDGraphics64\Graphics\iigd_ext.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 16 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelHDGraphics64\Graphics\IntcDAud.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 17 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelHDGraphics64\Graphics\msdk_comp.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 18 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelHDGraphics64\Graphics\vk_comp.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 19 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelMEI\heci.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 20 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelSST\intcaudiobus.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 21 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\SerialIO\iaLPSS2_GPIO2_CNL.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 22 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\SerialIO\iaLPSS2_I2C_CNL.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 23 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\SerialIO\iaLPSS2_SPI_CNL.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 24 of 24 - t:\$WinPEDriver$\SerialIO\iaLPSS2_UART2_CNL.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
The operation completed successfully.

X:\Sources>bcdboot w:\windows /l en-us /s s: /f uefi
Boot files successfully created.

X:\Sources>attrib -h t:\label\*

X:\Sources>copy t:\label\.d* s:\efi\boot
t:\label\.disk_label
t:\label\.disk_label_2x
        2 file(s) copied.

X:\Sources>attrib +h s:\efi\boot\.d*

X:\Sources>exit

After the Command Prompt window closes, click on the red X. When the popup shown below appears, click on the Yes button.

When the next windows appears, click on the red X. When the popup shown below appears, click on the Yes button.

When the Mac restarts, hold down the option key until the Mac boots to the Startup Manager. Next, hold down the control key while selecting the external drive icon labeled Windows.

After Windows 10 finishes installing, you will need to run the Boot Camp Support Software installer. This can be accomplished by opening the Setup application in the BootCamp folder on volume labeled WINSTALL.

Note: After the Boot Camp Support Software installer finished and the Mac restarted, the volume labeled WINSTALL was no longer assigned a drive letter. If you need to access this volume, then use Disk Management to assign the volume a drive letter. You can also protect the volume by using Disk Management to remove the drive letter.

While booted to Windows, run Apple Software Update to check for any new software from Apple.

Optional: Removing the Installation Partition
The instructions below remove the partition containing the Windows 10 ISO and Windows Support Software files. The free space is then added to the Windows partition.

Note: There exists a Golden Rule which can be loosely stated as “Never use Windows software to change the partitioning on Mac computers.” An exception to this rule is when Windows UEFI boots from the Windows installation files or the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE). Seeing a drive letter of X: is an indicator that this has occurred. Since the external drive contains no Apple partitions, you may want to chance using the Disk Management system utility in Windows, instead of following the instructions given below.

Boot to the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE). Basically, hold down the shift key while while selecting Restart, as shown in the image below.

Next, a series of menus will appear. Select Troubleshoot, Advanced options and Command Prompt in the order given. Eventually, a Command Prompt window will appear.
Below are the commands to be entered.

Note: If more that one disk appears in the list of disks, then care must be taken to select the correct disk, otherwise important data could be lost.

diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
list partition
select partition 4
delete partition
select partition 3
extend
list partition
exit
exit

Below is an example of the typical output from entering the above commands.
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.418]
(c) 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

X:\windows\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.18362.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: MININT-G6386F5

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          233 GB      0 B        *
  Disk 1    Online          465 GB   128 MB        *

DISKPART> sel disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list part

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    System             200 MB    20 KB
  Partition 2    Reserved            16 MB   201 MB
  Partition 3    Primary            450 GB   217 MB
  Partition 4    Primary             14 GB   450 GB

DISKPART> select partition 4

Partition 4 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> delete partition

DiskPart successfully deleted the selected partition.

DISKPART> select partition 3

Partition 3 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> extend

DiskPart successfully extended the volume.

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    System             200 MB    20 KB
  Partition 2    Reserved            16 MB   201 MB
* Partition 3    Primary            465 GB   217 MB

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

X:\windows\system32>exit

After the Command Prompt Windows closes, the menu shown below will appear. Select Turn off your PC.

“To Do List” of Items Not Covered in This Answer

Add a custom icon to the Startup Menu
Move the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) files to their own partition.
Configure Windows to use the Apple keyboard.

Additional References
DISM Image Management Command-Line Options
DISM Driver Servicing (.inf) Command-Line Options
BCDBoot Command-Line Options
UEFI/GPT-based hard drive partitions


Safari Back Button goes to old cached page, os X El Capitan, iMac On certain websites I visit Safari has a consistent problem.  Using the back button brings up an old cached version of the page.  Refresh works fine.  An example is http://forum.porsche356registry.org/viewforum.php?f=1.  If I read the threads on that page and click back, it will eventually start bringing up an old cached view of the page without refreshing the list of threads.

I enabled the Develop menu in Safari and watched what happened in the inspector's network tab, when clicking back vs. clicking refresh (of the same page).  They do different things.  Refresh always runs the script viewforum.php, which I assume refreshes the list of topics.  Clicking back often did not run that script.  Looking for an explanation...

I think the explanation is that Safari often uses the cached version of the page when you use the back button. If you want to force a refresh, you hit refresh. If you are on a forum and want to go back to the thread listing, you can usually click on a "breadcrumb" link near the page header. That will have the same effect as using the back button and hitting refresh, because Safari will understand your click to signal a new page visit.


Has Mountain Lion broken the ability to show Desktop with a gesture, begin dragging an icon, and unshow the Desktop? I have just upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. Despite my initial concerns relating to the new gestures, I am actually getting on pretty well and many of the new features are welcome.

I do however have one real gripe. Back in Snow Leopard I used to use a nifty trick with the touchpad show desktop gesture...

Say for example I had a window open and wanted to drag an item onto it from the desktop, but that item was obscured by the window. What you would normally have to do of course would be to move or resize the window out of the way and then drag and drop the icon, and then put the window back where you had it. Highly tedious.

What I had worked out was that if you used the four-finger swipe up to show the desktop, you could then click down on an icon and if you didn't begin to move it, you could then perform a four-finger swipe down to restore the window to its original place, and then with one finger still held down I would drag the icon onto the window where I wanted it.

It sound pretty complex when you describe it, but it's actually really intuitive and I used that pretty much all of the time. In fact it is only since I have upgraded that I realise how much I depend on that little trick in my day-to-day use.

The problem is that this does not appear to work anymore in mountain lion, using the pinch outward gesture to display the desktop - fine. But if you try and grab an icon it is impossible to restore your windows with the gesture, only allowing you to move the icon.

Is there anybody out there who has this same experience. Can the trick I know and use so much be replicated on Mountain Lion? If not suppose I will be going back to Snow Leopard, because this is a deal-breaker for me!

Another way to do this is to map "show desktop" to a hot corner (System Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners).

Show the desktop using the four-finger gesture or by using the hot
corner
Drag the file from the desktop to the hot corner, which will restore
the windows AND keep the file in hand
Drop the file onto whichever window you like.

This is how I do it, and it doesn't require any finger acrobatics.


Installing Windows and a Linux Distribution in addition to OS X with stock software So I want to install Windows and Linux (lets say Ubuntu) on a Macbook Pro.
Ideally that should work without installing some Software like rEFI..whatever.
The 1st Problem is that OS X already occupies 3 partitions out of the 4 a MBR table can Support.
Bootcamp then shrinks thoose and adds a 4th Windows uses.
My plan now is to boot into a Linux live CD delete this 4th Partition and creating an Extended Partition there which would then contain the partitions /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6 for Windows and Linux respectively.

I am a little hesitant to just do it as I am not sure if that possibly irreversibly screws up the partitioning.
Has anyone tried this before?
And can the stock Boot Menu manage three Operating Systems like this?

The drives containing the macOS operating system are required to use a GUID  partition table (GPT) and contain at least one EFI partition. This table holds up to at least 120 partition entries. There is also a Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table on each drive, but this table is only used by Windows installations on older Mac models.

While having extended partitions is theoretically possible, I have never seen any installation use such a configuration. There are other solutions that make extended partitions unnecessary.

The Startup Disk pane of the macOS System Preferences application, can display other operating systems and startup managers, but on the latest versions of macOS, only the macOS and Windows operating systems can be selected.

You can invoke the Startup Manager by holding down the option key on startup or restart. The Startup Manager menu can display and boot macOs, Windows, other operating systems and other startup managers. For other operating systems and/or startup managers to appear, the boot files usually have to copied to a location compatible with the Startup Manager.

On the newer model Macs, the instructions for adding Ubuntu after installing macOS and Windows can be found at the link below.

Installing Ubuntu on Mac with macOS and Windows already installed

If you already have macOS, Windows and Ubuntu installed on a Mac, the following link explains how to add Ubuntu to the Startup Manager menu.

Triple boot macOS High Sierra, Ubuntu, and Windows without rEFInd


Is there a way to execute on applescript when a server becomes available? I am trying to execute a script when a server becomes available (a bit like when the OS detect the presence of a time capsule device and it starts the backup.)  I didn't find a simple way to attach an applescript to an system event. Is there a way?

I am not looking for anything that requires a compiler. I am simply looking at attaching to an OS event (a bit like "Folder Actions" I guess, but for a server.)

You can use launchd for that purpose. Here is an example of a launchd config plist that will execute an AppleScript when a disk is mounted:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>Example</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
            <string>/Users/sakra/Documents/Test.applescript</string>
        </array>
        <key>StartOnMount</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
</plist>

To activate the config plist save it to the LaunchAgents folder in your Library folder as Example.plist.

From the Terminal you can then use the command launchctl to activate Example.plist by running:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/Example.plist

The AppleScript will then be run each time a filesystem is mounted.

To deactivate it, run:

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/Example.plist


What cool things can you do if you hack EFI I think I'm right in thinking Intel Macs use EFI.

I heard rumours that you can create low-level password protection and even install a shell. Info is sparse and limited.

Have any power users hacked their Mac EFI? If so, what did you do and how?

Yes, you can install a shell. You can also setup a firmware password, though you generally use utilities that run under Mac OS X to set it up (Apple include's Firmware Password Utility on the install DVD, but does not actually lay it down on the system partition).

EFI is probably less interesting from an hobbyist perspective than OpenFirmware was. Even if you install an EFI shell, you only have access to a limited scripting environment (basically akin to bash), unlike OpenFirmware where you could actually write substantial things directly in Forth (up to and including writing boot drivers directly at the console without a separate OS and toolchain).

In order to do anything serious with EFI you need to build a cross compile toolchain to compile to native code or EBC, and once you do that you might as well just compile a standalone binary and make it look like a boot vector and just have the firmware boot your code like an OS.


In Automator, how to get the folder contents after a "Run Shell Script" action I have an Automator application where I'd like to drag a folder onto it and have it create a duplicate (sibling) of that folder with the duplicate's files renamed. For example, starting with the following:

root
 +--svgs
     |--icons_a.svg
     +--icons_b.svg

When dragging the svgs directory onto the application, I would like to end up with the following:

root
 |--svgs
 |   |--icons_a.svg
 |   +--icons_b.svg
 +--renamed-svgs
     |--a.svg
     +--b.svg

I've tried the following:

But it throws the following:

Not sure how to debug the error, but how can I get the first "Run Shell Script" action to return either the "renamed-svgs" folder or that folder's contents?

Or is there a better way to do this whole thing?

It is generally advisable to enclose a variable in double quotes.

Use the echo command to return the "renamed-svgs" folder

rm -rf "$@"/../renamed-svgs
cp -rf "$@"/ "$@"/../renamed-svgs
echo "$@"/../renamed-svgs/

Or use the find command to return files whose name start with icons_

rm -rf "$@"/../renamed-svgs
cp -rf "$@"/ "$@"/../renamed-svgs
find "$@/../renamed-svgs/" -type f -maxdepth 1 -iname 'icons_*' -print


Migration Assistant multiple use Is it possible to use the migration assistant to transfer files from my old PC to a new Mac (OSCatalina) more than once? I've got around 300gb of data on my old pc and transferred just 50gb to start with so that I don't have to wait for days to finish, but now when I open the migration assistant it says that the migration is "complete" and does not allow me to conduct a second transfer.

Is there any way to do another migration?

Thanks!

Your 'get out of jail free' card would be if all you have left to transfer are some simple stand-alone documents, rather than user-specific data, email accounts, browser logins & passwords etc. You could then just network the two together & file-share, rather than migrate.

Each migration will set up a new user account on your new Mac.
Your current stumbling block is you would have to keep generating new names. As soon as you do, it will let you proceed - but don't do that.
Picking this apart manually afterwards is going to be an absolute nightmare.*

Set aside sufficient time to be able to do this in one go & start over. Wipe the Mac & install a fresh new OS. Do the full migration as soon as it asks you, when you're initialising for first use.
You will be considerably better off in the long run.

*Been there, done that, don't ever want to do it again.

The procedure to do a full reset is at Apple KB - What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac In essence, you want to handle this as though you are going to be the 'next user'.


Will Time Machine backup of an encrypted HDD be encrypted? My MacBook is running Mac OS X Mavericks with FileVault HDD encryption. I use Time Machine to backup this drive to an unencrypted USB HDD.

Will this backup be encrypted? Or does Time Machine decrypt files from my internal HDD and save them in an unencrypted form on the USB HDD?

No - Time Machine will not preserve the encryption of the source disk since it reads the files in an unencrypted manner just like any other process once you log in to the Mac.

You would need to ensure that all Time Machine destinations are also encrypted to properly secure your data both on the main computer as well as have it encrypted on the Time Machine volumes. This is as easy as ticking a checkbox on the Time Machine preference pane in system preferences.

On macOS 10.12 Time Machine will throw a helpful notification if you do in fact select an unencrypted destination for encrypted OS.


Possible to release an update on iTunes Connect only to certain countries? Is it possible to release an update to an iOS app on iTunes Connect only to certain countries, while the app has been available worldwide? The intention is to release the new app gradually on a country per country basis.

At least at the moment there is no functionality in iTunes Connect to restrict the country of an update. Furthermore, you cannot make country restrictions per version, only for an application as a whole.

You might adjust the country selection when releasing the updated version, but that would effectively remove the application from deselected countries altogether.

Anyone who already purchased your app will still be able to download it.


What is the difference in the way PageUp/Pagedown keys are handled by Terminal.app vs iTerm2.app? I had an SOF question about the ipython REPL handling of scrolling   https://stackoverflow.com/q/65385315/1056563

Cycle through ipython “history” with one keystroke per item even when multiple lines

I discovered there is a difference in how the Terminal.app handles of PageUp/PageDown:

This turns out to be specific to the macOS Terminal app handling of PageUp / PageDown. iTerm2 instead has the desired behavior of scrolling the history using those keystrokes.

What are the differences between how those keys are handled between these App's? Can the iTerm2 behavior be replicated  in the Terminal.app ?

After messing around with different key combinations it seems that Shift-[PageUp/PageDn] in Terminal.app has the same effect in ipython as simply [PageUp/PageDn] in iTerm2. I'm still not sure how/where those settings live - maybe ~/.inputrc ?


How to tell Messages "I'm not at home"? I leave my Mac running 24/7, but I'm not always sitting at it.

Is there any way to tell the Mac, or Messages specifically, if my phone isn't on the local wifi subnet, don't take messages, leave them for my iPhone to pick up.

Currently, if for some reason I'm out of iMessage range but capable of receiving SMS, messages never arrive at my phone & are not re-transmitted after failing by the sender, because the system considers that handing them to my Mac is sufficient proof I saw them.

Missing jobs I was offered 6 hours ago, just because I was afk, is not a happy sight to return home to.

One option: log out of Messages on the Mac every time I leave the house...
...I'll never remember.
Edit: Logging out of iMessage on the Mac is considerably more trouble than it's worth. It generates half a dozen messages & emails to every device & account...

First of all, you need homebrew installed on your system. If you haven't, visit http://brew.sh for instructions, or let me know and I will try to guide you.

Then you need to install arp-scan. To do it, open a Terminal and type brew install arp-scan.

Next step. Save the following script, I called check-iphone-available.scpt, but your can rename if you want.

set IPHONE to do shell script "if /usr/local/bin/arp-scan -l | grep your-iphone-mac; then echo 1; else echo 0; fi" user name "your-username" password "your-password" with administrator privileges
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Messages"
        tell menu bar 1
            tell menu bar item "Messages"
                tell menu "Messages"
                    tell menu item "My Status"
                        tell menu "My Status"
                            if IPHONE is not equal to "0" then
                                click menu item "Available"
                            else
                                click menu item "Away"
                            end if
                        end tell
                    end tell
                end tell
             end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Replace your-username, your-password and your-iphone-mac.

your-username must be an administrator user that can sudo on your computer.
your-password password for that user.
your-iphone-mac can be obtained on your iphone, go to Settings -> General -> About and copy Wi-Fi Address.

Give permissions: chmod 775 check-iphone-available.scpt.

The script execute as administrator the command arp-scan. This command sends  ARP  packets  to  hosts on the local network and displays any responses that are received. The grep command look for your iphone on the answer receive by arp-scan. If the iphone is found, then return 1, otherwise, return 0. On 1, the script do click on Available menu item in Messages, on 0, the same on Away (can be changed by Offline, On the phone, etc).

So, let's do it automatically.

Go to folder /Users/your-username/Library/LaunchAgents and save there the following plist file. I named it com.username.checkiphone.plist, but again, feel free to change it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>com.your-username.checkiphone</string>

  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
    <string>/Users/your-username/bin/check-iphone-available.scpt</string>
  </array>

  <key>Nice</key>
  <integer>1</integer>

  <key>StartInterval</key>
  <integer>60</integer>

  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>

  <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
  <string>/tmp/com.your-username.checkiphone-available.err</string>

  <key>StandardOutPath</key>
  <string>/tmp/com.your-username.checkiphone-available.out</string>
</dict>
</plist>

The file is pretty self-explanatory. We will launch the command /usr/bin/osascript /Users/your-username/bin/check-iphone-available.scpt every 60 seconds, will be launched at load, will save errors on /tmp/com.username.checkiphone-available.err and logs on /tmp/com.username.checkiphone-available.out.

Again, replace your-username appropriately.

Last step, tell the Mac launchd daemon to load it.

launchctl load com.your-username.checkiphone.plist

To stop the script, just replace the word load with unload in the above sentence. When your restart your computer the script will be load again. To prevent it, move it to another folder.


Download icloud photo library without paying? I wanted to disable the iCloud photo library and the information said that I could still download my photos for 30 days, so I did. After disabling the library I got an email with the instructions to download the photos to the Photos app on my Mac.

However, it seems that the only way to download the backup of my photos is to reactivate the iCloud photo library for which now I have to upgrade my iCloud plan and pay. I just want to download a backup of my photos and be done with iCloud.

I wasn't told upfront that if I wanted to download a backup of the photos during those 30 days I would have to pay for an upgrade plan I don't want.

How do I do this without having to pay/upgrade to a plan that I don't want?

Go to www.icloud.com, select the iPhoto library, and on the top right corner there is an option to mark photos you want to download and download them through the browser. Then you can read them to your photo library on your mac.

I could not find an option to download all the photos as a "Photos library file" so that one can switch the Photos library directly to it on the mac. But it's at least something.


How do I download apps in ipad mini ios9.3.6 I known my ipad is old version.but im  trying to download apps from app store .but the apps are incompatible to the ipad..is there any other way to still get apps in my ipad???

It is possible to download older versions of an app from the iOS App Store, but you must already have "bought" (or used "Get" for a free app) the app using the Apple ID used by your older iPad.

Once the app is registered as Purchased (Apple calls it this even if it's a free app) against your Apple ID, you can go into the Purchased tab on the App Store on your older iPad and download from there.

You will get a pop-up "Download an older version of this app?" ("The current version requires iOS X.X or later, but you can download the latest compatible version") where you choose Download.

So to be able to do this, if you haven't already got the app, you do need a second iOS device using the same Apple ID for the App Store.


LG UltraFine & replacement Belkin USB-C cable gives blurry text I have an LG UltraFine 5K screen and a 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro.
The original USB-C cable that came with the screen broke. So I bought a Belkin USB-C replacement. Now all text is noticeable blurry. So it’s not fully compatible despite the fact that I bought everything directly from Apple.
Are there any settings I can try to tweak to get the same sharp text like with the original cable? I’ve already tried disabling font smoothing. If not, which cable I should buy to get full compatibility?

Looking at the specs of the the LG 5K Display and the accessories (cable) it comes with, you can't just use any plain USB-3 cable.

You need a Thunderbolt 3 Active Cable.  Thunderbolt 1 and 2, natively, were active meaning power was required to operate properly.  Normally, Thunderbolt 3 is a passive, meaning power isn't present. Any quality USB-3 cable will carry Thunderbolt 3 (and vice versa).
However, to drive this particular monitor, it appears LG requires an active cable.


How to get Outlook email indexed by Spotlight after reinstalling Office 2011? I reinstalled Office 2011 and my Outlook email index stopped updating. I forced a reindex of the entire drive, but the email still wasn't indexing. Stopped by the Genius Bar and they suggested reindexing the drive and repairing permissions (didn't work).

Finally found the solution to this problem. Outlook provides a custom importer to Spotlight to index email. It is typically found in:

  "/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft Outlook.app/Contents/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Outlook.mdimporter",

You can use the command /usr/bin/mdimport -L to list all installed importers. When I did that I saw that the importer from the old installation of Outlook was still installed because it was still in the trash can. When I tried to manually import an email using the command usr/bin/mdimport -d2 /[path]/x00_138.olk14Message I saw that it was failing to load the importer from the trash.

Emptying the trash fixed the issue. Wish there was a way to selectively empty the trash without deleting everything.

Once I emptied the trash, I had to force Spotlight to reindex the email folder by adding the /Users/jim/Documents/Microsoft User Data folder to the Privacy tab of Spotlight System Settings, and then removing it again. After spotlight reported the indexing was complete (via the Spotlight dropdown in the upper right) the email was all indexed again.

Hope that helps!


iMac - Airport 'Looking for networks' affects FireWire audio device This problem has been driving me mad for months and started when I upgraded to OS X Lion from Snow Leopard on my iMac.

I've got a Saffire 56 external audio device connected via FireWire (works perfectly / all newest drivers etc). I get crackling, jittery audio whenever Airport decides to scan for networks, or connects to my home network. If I turn it off everything works perfectly.

Why the AirPort and a FireWire audio device are remotely connected I have no idea?

Does anyone have a solution for disabling AirPort scanning for networks, or better still, stop the problem completely?

Other than disabling the WiFi card entirely, there isn't a documented way to prevent periodic scans with the Mac OS running.

It's possible that just normal interference like when a mobile phone disturbs a radio is affecting the audio signals.  You don't say what Mac hardware you are using, but you could try something as simple as moving the audio hardware further away, or to the other side of your iMac/Macbook etc, maybe even run it through a hub or use a long cable to take it out of reach of the antenna, see if it makes a difference.  Failing that try changing the WiFi channels on your router to see if it helps.

The other issue to consider is perhaps the AirPort card is failing or improperly grounded / connected inside the mac. I have seen the antenna cables pop off when a Mac takes a tumble - so if it's not too much inconvenience or cost, having a technician run a quick test on the airport card and verify all the internal cables / grounding is correct might solve the issue as well.

It's entirely possible with Lion that the airport drivers do different things with AirDrop that Windows drivers don't do and that could conceivably be the cause. It's a long shot, but I've seen this sort of thing before.


Is it possible to sync a folder from Dropbox to iBook in iPad? I want to copy an folder which may contain lots of folders from Dropbox to iBook, and keep the folder hierarchy correct. I used to use GoodReader and works fine, but it crashes a lot under iOS 7.

No, this is not possible since iBooks does not support bulk importing of content from other applications on an iOS device. The three ways to add books to iBooks are:

Purchase from the iBooks store and download
Sync books through iTunes
Send a single book (not several) from another application on the iOS device with the Open In...iBooks option

Also, iBooks does not have the concept of folders and folder hierarchies. It does have Collections, but there is no way to map folders to Collections from iTunes or any other source.


Restore Podcast Layout in iTunes 12.4 My Macbook Pro just updated its iTunes to 12.4, and now I cannot figure out how to navigate my Podcasts. In the previous version, I had a list of Podcasts in the sidebar, and I could select one to see a list of all current and previous episodes. Now all I see is "Most Recent" and everything is jumbled together in one list.

Is there a way to restore the previous behavior of listing the Podcasts individually?

Relevant screenshots:

In the sidebar at the top you have the Podcasts option (just above the Stations one you have just selected) which seems to do what you want - you will see a list of all of your podcasts in the middle column. Then you can switch between unplayed/feed tabs in the right column to see all episodes or just the unplayed ones.

Depending on the defaults the view might be reduced to a text-only list.

Edit including comment from @JosephLeedy:

In order to obtain the three column view similar to the old look, after clicking on "Podcasts," you have to go to View > View Options in the menu (or press ⌘J) and change View As from Classic List to List.


An unknown modem appears in network device list - evidence of tampering? MBP, OSX Sierra

Today while looking at the network preference panel I saw a modem device with a name 'MT67xx Preloader' which googles to some generic mediatek device name - this macbook doesn't afaik have a modem and none was connected via USB or bluetooth pairing as far as I know, is it possible that OSX somehow installed device drivers for it as I was (physically) browsing the smartphone section of a large retail store or should I suspect someone has physically tampered with it ?

How can I link this device to drivers / executables / processes on the system ?

What log files can be expected to contain info about it being installed ?

Run "ioreg -l | grep your search word"in the terminal maybe? Probably again without grep and just command F to search the modem name to see the things its associated with, if at all. That name with the two x's looks like things I've seen too. Sure there's more you can do but I'm no expert..just been dealing with a lot of odd things with Sierra myself. Are you doing this from single user or recovery?

If you're in recovery mode you should look for a bunch of ramdisks with "diskutil list" (15-18 about) if it's this embedded operating system firmware malware my devices all have.


How do I change my Apple ID in macOS? (no Apple ID login) When I setup my user, I used my old company email. I no longer have access to that email. I do, though, have full admin access to my current user (and all users for that matter).

Currently, I'm trying to update Xcode, but it requires the Apple ID credentials with which it was originally installed. I no longer have them.

How can I use my admin position to change my Apple ID?

The easiest is simply to uninstall Xcode, log out of the App Store with your AppleID, login again with a new AppleID - and simply reinstall Xcode.

If you do not have an AppleID, you can create a new one. Xcode is a free download.


Can I tell Photos I never want to use it with iCloud? I have both iPhoto and Photos installed on my Mac and use both independently of each other. However, whenever I launch the Photos app I get the following prompt:

Is there a way for me to permanently tell Photos that I never want to use iCloud with Photos? I only want to use iCloud with iPhoto and worry that one day I will accidentally pick the wrong option when the above message appears.

—UPDATE—

Yes, I know that iPhoto is old software replaced with Photos.

I have a particular library I use with iPhoto because of a number of shared albums via iCloud and because one of my Macs cannot use Photos.

I do use Photos, but only with another library I never ever ever want to use iCloud with.

I am happy to only have one library connected with iCloud and that is my iPhoto library.

I am not familiar with Terminal (quite frankly it scares me) but if I can do this with terminal, please provide very clear instructions. That’s what my bounty is for. Any answer that can achieve what I want.

Thank you!

I'm going to take a step back and redefine the problem:

You have an iPhoto library with active shared albums.
You have a Photos library that you don't want to use iCloud with.

This is not difficult, but you need to work with the system, not go against the grain, which is what you're asking. Even if you found a command-line "solution", it would not be guaranteed to work in the future and would likely be undone with the next Photos update.

Here's what you do:

On the Mac that doesn't support Photos, you leave iPhoto. You leave your iPhoto Library intact and use as normal.

On all other Macs, use only Photos. Create a new Photos library (hold Option as you launch Photos and click "Create New") and designate that library to be the Photos System Library. This means that all Shared Albums, PhotoStream, etc. will be synced to this library, and this library only. See https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21363?locale=en_US for more information.

Other Photos libraries, which are not the Photos System Library, will show you the following when you look at Photos > Preferences > iCloud:

Now you can update your Shared Albums from any of your Macs, the one with only iPhoto or the one with Photos.

On the Mac with Photos, the only change is holding Option when you launch Photos to choose which library to use each session.

This will accomplish what you want without needing to 'hack' the system.

==== earlier answer mostly trying to understand the problem better ===

iPhoto and Photos are iCloud enabled, but only one library can be the primary iCloud-connected library. As iPhoto is deprecated, Apple is trying to nudge you along to only use Photos and get rid of iPhoto.

Photos is the replacement for iPhoto. They were never intended to both be used. In fact, in some cases, Apple would invalidate the iPhoto application to force users to only use Photos.

Since both iPhoto and Photos use things like PhotoStream and other services through iCloud, I imagine that the two programs are getting confused and they can't behave properly. Frankly, I'm surprised you're not experiencing sync'ing or other problems since you are using both.

The first time Photos appeared, it went through the process of migrating your old iPhoto library to a new Photos library, but it left the old one intact. This allows the user to double-check that the migration was successful before deleting the iPhoto library, to free up space if not for minimizing risk of confusion ("why are my photos appearing there and not here?")

So, if I may ask, are the photos in both your iPhoto Library and your Photos library more or less the same, or do you have two distinct libraries?

If the former, then I think you should move to Photos and ditch iPhoto completely, as it's no longer supported and will likely only cause further problems/confusion.

If the latter, then I suggest that you upgrade that new, distinct iPhoto Library to a Photos library for the same reason as above and use the Option-key modifier while starting Photos to choose which library you want to use each time you launch Photos. And ditch iPhoto.

The short version is that as iPhoto is deprecated, unsupported software, the longer you continue to use it, the more likely you will have problems.


iPhone buyer requesting I set passcode before shipping Is this a scam?  I've completely reset the phone, and he is asking that I set a specific 6-digit passcode before shipping for security reasons.  Should I do it?

I think that’s something reasonable to request. It guarantees you can either activate the device and it’s working well enough for a passcode to be set and doesn’t erode your privacy in any manner.

I’d indulge the buyer to see what they want. You could still be scammed and not get payment or have the buyer say they didn’t get the phone - so you’ll want traceable delivery / shipment or be willing to get a claim you didn’t provide the goods.

But, the passcode is neither here nor there in my eyes as making a transaction risky or safe.


reattach terminal tab to another window Suppose you have a terminal with two tabs. You click, drag, and let go one of these tabs and it becomes an independent terminal window. After a while, you want to take this terminal window and reattach it as a tab to the previous window. How do you do it ? I have seen the merge windows option in the menus, but that merges all windows into one, which I would then have to revert.

You need to, in the window you want to move, go to View-> Show Tab Bar (if the tab bar isn't showing already).

Then, drag the tab of the window you want to move onto the window you want to move it to.

Update for iTerm 2: In iTerm 2 the setting is no longer exposed in the View menu.  Go to iTerm > Preferences > Appearance > Tabs and check "Show tab bar even when there is only one tab". Note that in early releases of iTerm 2 the setting was "Hide tab bar when there is only one tab".


Can OSX still sync dropbox while "asleep"? If a Mac Mini running macOS 10.11 is in sleep mode, but powered on and connected to the network, will Dropbox still sync in the background?

You might want to consult Apple's documentation about Power Nap.

Mac Minis (Late 2012 and later) are Power Nap compatible.

From what I can see, the only services which are available when a Power Nap compatible computer is in sleep mode are Apple-only:

If your Mac supports Power Nap, these activities can occur while your Mac is asleep:

Mail receives new messages.
Contacts keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Calendar receives new invitations and calendar updates.
Reminders keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Notes keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Documents stored in iCloud keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Photo Stream keeps up to date with changes made on other devices.
Find My Mac updates the location of the Mac, so you can find it while it's asleep.
VPN on demand continues working so that your corporate email updates securely. (Power Nap supports VPN connections that use a certificate to authenticate, not VPN connections that require entering a password.)
Mobile Device Management can remotely lock and wipe your Mac.

And these activities can occur while your Mac is asleep and plugged in to an AC power outlet:

Software updates download.
Mac App Store items (including software updates), download in the background.
Time Machine performs backups.
Spotlight performs indexing.
Help Center content updates.
Wireless base stations can wake your Mac using Wake on Wireless.

Content lifted directly from the Apple Support document linked above.


I have my mac serving an application on port 80 that I can access within the network, how can I prevent it from sleeping? I have my mac serving an application on port 80 and I can access it from another device just fine, but only when the screen is on, when I close the lid I can no longer access this. These are my power settings:

Is there anything else I need to change?

Lid Open

Your Mac will sleep if you close the lid.

You need to leave your MacBook lid open for the server to keep responding to requests.

You can set the display to sleep after a period of idle time; this will not affect the server. Only the computer needs to remain awake.


Mac running Windows 7 unable to detect Mac hardware, Windows Support Software issue...how to fix (no USB) At wits end here. Been following David Anderson's tutorial and never truly had success with it. First time, years ago, keyboard and cursor never functioned but external variants circumvented the need. Now, I can't get it to work at all, internal or external.

Main issue has been acquiring the Windows support files from BootCamp.
help.apple.com list many "tutorial installation" like this but most are fake as no installation button exist. On older Macs, BootCamp doesn't allow only installing the files and additionally require an external USB.

So...I used this incredibly-difficult-to-find compatability reference by Apple and determined I needed...5. A Google search narrowed it to BootCamp5.1.5640 which I acquired from CNET.com. Sadly, files were dirty; lacked tracker & keyboard drives. A random search lead me to a seemingly amazing utility called Brigadier which automatically detected my Mac spec' and installed a clean BootCamp5.1.5640. Unfortunately, keyboard and tracker still non-functioning.

Running the BootCamp files manually in Emulator after having created Window 7 (merely for error-testing) had error messages claim it to be the wrong version for this system. Additionally attempted to manually run the .exe drivers via command prompt in Step #8 but returned "The subsystem needed to support the image type is not present."

I, too, like mentioned in comment section of first link, had the error "this version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of Windows you are trying to repair." I fixed it in step #7, after setting up settings--prior to accepting them--by rearranging the SATA Ports in following order:
Windows version.iso -- SATA Port 0.
bcss.vmdk -- SATA Port 1.
bootcamp.vdmk -- SATA Port 2.
Makes sense Windows.iso can't repair bcss.vdmk if latter is loaded first, I suppose. I mention this in-case of relevance, but it was either rearrange or get a new .iso.

I thought too that it may be possible to trick...the whole shabang to accept the tracker/keyboard exe driver of the Windows Support SoftWare by renaming it to one of the drivers that actually work (like screen) and hope it make a go. Untested, due to likely chance of failing.

If I had been able to boot Windows 7 with a functioning key-board In reckon I would have fixed this but stuck with Mac I'm forced here.

Details:
Operating systems is Windows 7 SP1 Ultimate & Mavericks (10.9.5).
Computer is Macbook Pro11,1 Retina, 13-inch, mid 2014.
BootCamp5.5640 is suggested by numerous sources to be compatible; action disagree.

EDIT #1:
Improved Mac to Yosemite 10.10.5. Tested a new Windows 7 .iso from Apple, same result (both internal and external equipment non-functioning--with exception of in advanced boot menu). Additionally, I tested Windows 8.1 and it appeared non-functioning at Step #10 (internal keyboard giving no results) until I connected an external USB mouse (which worked) then suddenly internal keyboard and mouse worked too. I continued the steps but the Windows 7 activation key didn't allow installation of 8.1. Have Windows 10 too but assume it will be same results (what's worse is if it works and voids key for use of activating Windows 7 later). Like mentioned in comment section, I will attempt to use Window's 8.1 dism command to install 7 but a little jiffy on the details. Additionally, with the new .iso images; I was able to arrange them in order of SATA ports as in the tutorial posts, results are the same.

The answer, you referred to in your question, started out as an answer to the question Boot camp install of Windows 7 issue, no bootable devices. This question was often asked by owners of older Macs where the optical (DVD) drive was either damaged or replaced by a second internal HDD or SSD. The improved answer, which you referred to, was thought to be general enough to cover later Macs with no internal optical drive, but could still support a BIOS booting Window 7. However, this answer has proven to fail at step 10 for several model Macs where neither a keyboard, mouse, or trackpad would work. Fortunately, other questions/answers have been posted (such as Is it possible to use Boot Camp with Windows 10 from an external HDD?) where this fatal step 10 can be avoided. Since your updated question indicates you can get a keyboard, mouse or trackpad to work with Windows 8.1, I posted the instructions below for installing Windows 7.

Instructions for Installing Windows 7 SP1 using Windows 8.1 ISO

  This method does not use VirtualBox. Instead, the method relies on being able to boot from a Windows 8.1 flash drive. However, if this does not work out, a virtual machine could be use, but the instruction for doing so have be omitted from this answer.

The following files were downloaded from the internet. You can substitute files from another source, if you wish.

Windows 7 Professional SP1 English (64-bit) from this Microsoft website:
Download Windows 7 Disc Images (ISO Files).
Windows 8.1 English (64-bit) from this Microsoft website
Download Windows 8.1 Disc Image (ISO File).
The Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5640 from this Apple website.

The drive letters are given below along with a described. If you get different drive letters, then make the appropriate substitutions.

Drive C: is the fourth partition on the internal drive. Here I assume this partition has been MS-DOS (FAT) formatted and named BOOTCAMP by the Yosemite Disk Utility application
Drive D: is the bootable Windows 8.1 flash drive. Basically, a flash drive created using the Boot Camp Assistant and the Windows 8.1 ISO.
Drive E: is a MS-DOS (FAT) formatted flash drive containing the Windows 7 SP1  files.
Drive F: is a MS-DOS (FAT) formatted flash drive containing the Boot Camp Support Software files.

  Note: Here, I assume different flash drives were used for Window 7 SP1 and the Boot Camp Support Software, although an individual flash drive could be substituted.

Use the Startup Manager to boot from the Windows 8.1 flash drive. You should see the following image.

Press the shift+F10 key combination to open a Command Prompt windows, as shown below.

Enter the commands shown in the example below.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600]

X:\Sources>wmic logicaldisk get volumename,name
Name  VolumeName
C:    BOOTCAMP
D:    WINDOWS8
E:    WINDOWS7
F:    BOOTCAMP5
X:    Boot

X:\Sources>format c: /fs:ntfs /v:BOOTCAMP /q
The type of the file system is FAT32.
The new file system is NTFS.
Enter current volume label for drive C: BOOTCAMP

WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK
DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? y
QuickFormatting 204.3 GB
Creating file system structures.
Format complete.
     204.3 GB total disk space.
     204.3 GB are available.

X:\Sources>dism /get-imageinfo /imagefile:e:\sources\install.wim

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.3.9600.17483

Details for image : e:\sources\install.wim

Index : 1
Name : Windows 7 HOMEBASIC
Description : Windows 7 HOMEBASIC
Size : 11,710,161,360 bytes

Index : 2
Name : Windows 7 HOMEPREMIUM
Description : Windows 7 HOMEPREMIUM
Size : 12,222,587,449 bytes

Index : 3
Name : Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL
Description : Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL
Size : 12,122,886,417 bytes

Index : 4
Name : Windows 7 ULTIMATE
Description : Windows 7 ULTIMATE
Size : 12,285,492,779 bytes

The operation completed successfully.

X:\Sources>dism /apply-image /imagefile:e:\sources\install.wim /index:4 /applydir:c:\ /checkintegrity

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.3.9600.17483

Applying image
[==========================100.0%==========================]
The operation completed successfully.

X:\Sources>dism /image:c:\ /add-driver /driver:f:\$WinPEDriver$ /Recurse /ForceUnsigned

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.3.9600.17483

Image Version: 6.1.7600.16385

Searching for driver packages to install...
There was a problem opening the INF file. f:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelHDGraphics64\autorun.inf Error: 0xE0000100.
Found 9 driver package(s) to install.
Installing 1 of 9 - f:\$WinPEDriver$\AppleBluetoothBroadcom64\AppleBTBC64.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 2 of 9 - f:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelHDGraphics64\DisplayAudio\IntcDAud.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 3 of 9 - f:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelHDGraphics64\Graphics\igdlh64.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 4 of 9 - f:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelxHCISetup\Drivers\HCSwitch\Win7\x64\iusb3hcs.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 5 of 9 - f:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelxHCISetup\Drivers\HCSwitch\Win7\x86\iusb3hcs.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 6 of 9 - f:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelxHCISetup\Drivers\xHCI\Win7\x64\iusb3hub.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 7 of 9 - f:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelxHCISetup\Drivers\xHCI\Win7\x64\iusb3xhc.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 8 of 9 - f:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelxHCISetup\Drivers\xHCI\Win7\x86\iusb3hub.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 9 of 9 - f:\$WinPEDriver$\IntelxHCISetup\Drivers\xHCI\Win7\x86\iusb3xhc.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
The operation completed successfully.

X:\Sources>bcdboot c:\windows /l en-us /s c: /f bios
Boot files successfully created.

X:\Sources>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600

Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: MININT-DQVBS9Q

DISKPART> select volume c

Volume 6 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> active

DiskPart marked the current partition as active.

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

X:\Sources>exit

After the Command Prompt window closes, click on the red X. When the popup shown below appears, click on the Yes button.

When the Mac restarts, hold down the option key until the Mac boots to the Startup Manager. Next, hold down the control key while selecting Windows on the internal drive.

After Windows 7 finishes installing, you will need to run the Boot Camp Support Software installer.

Suggestions, If You Can Only Get a Keyboard, Mouse or Trackpad to Work.

If only an external or internal keyboard works, you should still be able to navigate by using the keyboard. Once you have installed Windows 7 and run the setup utility included in the Boot Camp Support Software, the keyboard, mouse and/or trackpad should work.

If you can not get the keyboard to work, but can get a mouse or trackpad to work, then you can use the on-screen keyboard. When booting Windows 7, you will see the image shown below.

If you click on the icon in the lower left, you will get the following popup. Select Type without the keyboard (On-Screen Keyboard), then click on the OK button.

The result should be the appearance of the on-screen keyboard, as shown below.


Where does Lion's autosave feature save past versions? I just plugged in a USB stick, edited a text file a few times, and found that I could browse through the revision history of the file, even though it's on an external drive. Are these revisions saved on the USB stick? Where exactly?

There are a couple SQLite databases located in a hidden folder on the root of your hard drive that are tasked with tracking the files and the differences between the versions.

The directory is:

/.DocumentRevisions-V100

The two databases are:

/.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1/db.sqlite
/.DocumentRevisions-V100/.cs/ChunkStoreDatabase

Source: http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/14#versioning-internals


Where is my Java console on OS X? I can't find the Java console in Preferences nor in Utilities.
Can I open the Java console from a Terminal command?

Running OS X 10.7.5 and Java version 1.6.0_65

It is somewhat maddening, but the Java console won't display unless a Java application is actually running. The easiest way to get it started is to visit https://www.java.com/verify/ from the Firefox browser.


Can not visit some sites because of too many ads! Is there any virus in my Mac? I need to know that my mac was working perfectly fine till today. I wanted to visit same sites which i have visited yesterday in safari,and they were working perfectly fine, so today when i tried to open the page. It opened for few seconds and then went to another page of ads, where i couldn't see any cross option to close this ad. I have tried other sites to check ,but sadly same thing occurred. Only main site like mac,Facebook and this site working fine.

Need to fix this issue. Is there any virus. I didn't install anything in mac.

Try BitDefender's freeware tools -

Adware Removal Tool for Mac
Virus scanner for Mac
Mechanic

The Adware remover you get directly from the link, the others you can get through Apple's App Store.

I would highly recommend keeping the Virus scanner on your machine afterwards & running it periodically.
Macs are not immune to viruses, they're just rare.
The freeware version does not actively scan in the background, you need the paid version for that.

BitDefender is highly rated on official antivirus test sites such as http://www.av-test.org/en/


Mac OS X Mavericks freezes, stops responding when running out of memory It happens every other day and the symptoms are weird to say the least. The computer still responds in some sense; I can move the mouse, the volume buttons on my headphones work. They keyboard does nothing though, neither does clicking. No hover states are presented. It is as if the mouse pointer isn't really moved.

I can use the computer if I log in from another computer using SSH or using a remote from my phone (I use Rowmote.) It is very slow, though - but it responds.

In this state, I can do very few things. Starting new applications is a roulette, for example I could start Activity Monitor (nothing odd to be seen) but starting Console after that was not possible. Closing apps gave odd results until finally it stopped responding to the remote as well. Interestingly, the remote application didn't think it had lost the connection so somehow it still received and acknowledged the remote commands.

Here is the relevant /var/log/system.log output from the moment it happened:

Jan  3 10:39:19 knifen.local WindowServer[119]: CGXCreateShmem : mach_make_memory_entry(268453900: unknown error code) : Cannot map memory
Jan  3 10:39:19 knifen.local WindowServer[119]: _CGXCreateWindowInline: Creation failure 1007
Jan  3 10:39:19 knifen.local Dock[15204]: CGSNewWindowWithOpaqueShape: Cannot create window
Jan  3 10:39:19 knifen.local WindowServer[119]: CGXCreateShmem : mach_make_memory_entry(268453900: unknown error code) : Cannot map memory
Jan  3 10:39:19 knifen.local WindowServer[119]: _CGXCreateWindowInline: Creation failure 1007
Jan  3 10:39:19 knifen.local Dock[15204]: CGSNewWindowWithOpaqueShape: Cannot create window
Jan  3 10:39:28 knifen.local WindowServer[119]: BUG in libdispatch: 13A603 - 2930 - 0x1000480c
Jan  3 10:39:51 knifen kernel[0]: IOHIDSystem: postEvent LLEventQueue overflow.
Jan  3 10:40:50 knifen.local Spotify[13941]: Got disconnected: Error Domain=GCDAsyncSocketErrorDomain Code=4 "Read operation timed out" UserInfo=0xfa075f0 {NSLocalizedDescription=Read operation timed out}
Jan  3 10:40:55 knifen kernel[0]: IOHIDSystem: postEvent LLEventQueue overflow.
Jan  3 10:41:50 knifen.local hidd[95]: IOHIDEventQueue unable to get policy for event of type 11. (e00002e8)
Jan  3 10:41:56 --- last message repeated 113 times ---

I am not really wondering anything here, if you have tips I guess that would be good. It seems to be bad engineering on Apple's part.

When the OS is starved for room on disk, bad things happen by design in an effort to try to keep the critical parts of the system online long enough to let a controlled crash happen and potentially let apps with changes to save survive until the cleanup activity starts.

Mavericks is much less likely to allocate the full amount of RAM to /var/db/sleepimage so people used to having that space preallocated can run into surprises when the OS needs a little room to grow the sleep image if operating conditions dictate.

The main tip would be to preserve several gigabytes of free space on the bootable volume when you have a workload that stresses the virtual memory system and runs with memory pressure in the red.

Here are my recommendations:

What scale or measure does Mavericks' and Yosemite's "memory pressure" adhere to? has some good information on monitoring and causing memory pressure on command
boot your system, log in one user, quit all applications
open activity monitor and observe / record the memory screen
put the machine to sleep and wake it 30 seconds later
run sudo du -sm /var/vm/* and note how large your sleep image file is as well as whether any swap files have been created on disk.

You will want to have ideally enough space on disk free to match your total memory footprint if you intend to run programs that take the virtual memory system into yellow territory for memory pressure. You probably won't need all that space for just the OS, but especially if you are getting mach memory errors like you are listing, the workload you are running needs a little more free space to grow than you are allowing.

Additionally, if you feel the system tuning is incorrect, you could easily file a bug report by running sysdiagnose after a clean boot as described above, once again when the system is running the intended workload properly and one last sydiagnose run once you've caused the memory allocations to start breaking the system. It's possible there are better choices Apple could have made, but it also could just be your software is buggy / leaking memory and the system is breaking as it was intended when the finite resources it has have become exhausted. Without more details it's hard to tell which is the case.


Unlock a Virgin Mobile USA iPhone 4s -- worthwhile? I have an iPhone 4s that works with Virgin Mobile USA. Since carriers must unlock phones now I'm wondering about unlocking this one. But I haven't been able to determine if it would actually be worthwhile. Specifically, whether I'd be able to use the phone with a different carrier.

The phone is an iPhone 4s, marked on the back as an A1387, and identifies itself in settings as an MD236LL/A. This is a CDMA refurb model, obtained from an Apple store after the original phone got dropped in a puddle.

What I'd like to do: (a) use the phone with some other US-based carrier while at home, and (b) when traveling outside the USA, use the phone with a local SIM and GSM network.

I've tried searching for unlocking info but I'm getting conflicting answers about whether either of the above are possible:

Some sites say that since the 4s is a "world" phone that after unlocking it would work on both domestic (US) GSM networks as well as CDMA networks like Verizon.
Some sites say that although it's a "world" phone, it's tied to CDMA when in the USA. While traveling it would work with a GSM network using local SIM but in the USA it could not use a GSM network.
Still others say that "world" means nothing here, that it's strictly CDMA and can't use GSM at all.

Can anyone clear this up? I know I can legally get the phone unlocked, but would doing so get me either of the things mentioned above? Virgin Mobile USA's site isn't helping me. They have a chart listing types of unlocks for different phones, but from past experience with them I pretty much assume they're either lying or just plain wrong about most things.

iPhone 4s, both the CDMA and GSM models, has GSM hardware built-in. The only difference between the two models is whether the device supports CDMA, and in that case, which network it supports. A device sold by Virgin Mobile, which piggybacks on Sprint's network, may work in CDMA mode on the Sprint network once unlocked, though you would need to confirm this with Sprint. It cannot be used on Verizon's network. In GSM mode, it can be used outside the US on essentially any network. It cannot be used on US-based GSM carriers (T-Mobile/AT&T).

The iPhone 4 CDMA model (sold at Verizon) was not compatible with any GSM network, US-based or otherwise. That may be where the confusion lies.


How do I transfer a file from a guest account on a MacBook Air? I'm logged into the guest account of a borrowed MacBook Air which is running OS X Version 10.9.2 and I've been trying to transfer a 2.19GB video file to an admin account, a USB or external hard drive, or online.

1. Transferring the file to the admin account:
Apparently if I log out of this guest account, the file will be deleted. So, I tried transferring it to a shared folder, but I can't find/access a shared folder... perhaps because I'm on a guest account? I tried using Terminal and codes I copy-pasted from Google, but they all require the password of the admin account, which the owner can't remember. We've been working together the whole afternoon to try to remember the password, but the owner says he'd be able to guess it if he had the "password hint". Unfortunately, we only know how to view the "password hint" by logging out of the guest account, which we obviously can't do, or else the file will be deleted.
Transferring to the admin account: FAILED :(

2. Transferring the file to a USB or external hard drive:
I've tried both ports with 3 different USB's, and none of them were recognized by the Mac. I've also tried plugging in a WD external hard drive in both ports, but neither recognized the hard drive. All in all, nothing between 3 USB's and 1 external hard drive showed up on the Mac. Could this have anything to do with being logged into a guest account?
Transferring the file to a USB or external hard drive: FAILED :(

3. Uploading online:
I've had two tabs open for the past 15 minutes: YouTube and Google Drive. Neither are showing any progress towards the upload. As I'm typing, both currently remain at 0%. I've also tried uploading the file through email, but Yahoo crashes before the upload even begins. In addition to this, I've tried uploading with Filemail.com multiple times. Each time it says it has "problems uploading"...
Uploading online: FAILED :(

Is there anything I can do? Is there another method I can try? Perhaps theres a way to view the password hint without logging out of the guest account? Is there another way to access the "shared files" folder without needing the admin password? Is there anything that can be done about the USB's and the hard drive that won't show up? Is there a reason why the file won't upload online? I would really, really appreciate your help. Thank you in advance!

Every user account on OS X has a public drop box folder inside its Public folder (path is /Users/USERNAME/Public/Drop\ Box/). So what you can do is download the file into Guest's Download folder and then copy it (via Terminal or Finder) to /Users/ADMINNAME/Public/Drop\ Box/. You will get a warning about not being able to access the file after the copy, just click ok there.

Alternatively you could move the video to /tmp and then switch accounts. Files owned by guest are not deleted from /tmp if the Guest user logs out.


Kanex Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter doesn't play audio on Sony Bravia TV I have MacBook Pro with a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter. I use the adapter to play images from the Mac to my Sony Bravia TV.

Since it doesn't play sound, I have an audio that connects the Mac to the PC in HDMI Audio jack.

Even though, the sound still doesn't play on the TV (and when the cable is connected to the Mac, the sound also doesn't play on the Mac, which indicates the sound is going somewhere else, but not the TV!).

I've tried some configurations on the Applications / Utilities / Audio Midi Setup, but nothing works!

What should I do? Any idea on how to make the audio cable work?

Some thoughts, and things for you to check on:

What model of MacBook Pro do you have? Older ones (pre-Mid 2010) don't have audio out through the Mini DisplayPort.
Have you tried looking at System Preferences » Sound  » Output? What devices are displayed, and what have you chosen?
Can you explain what "I have an audio that connects the Mac to the PC in HDMI Audio jack" means?
Which Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter do you have? The early models were made to work with the then-current MacBooks (and Pros)—and as those models didn't have audio out over Mini DisplayPort, there wasn't any reason for the cable to, either.
Have you tried hooking up a cable from the Mac's audio out/speaker jack directly into the TV?
Some possibly-helpful info:

Can I output video to my TV using a MacBook Pro? (Apple.SE)
About Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapters (Apple.com)
Apple Mini DisplayPort adapters: Frequently asked questions (Apple.com)


Is it possible to force a Mac *.webloc file to open in a new Chrome window instead of a new tab in an existing window? There is an answer already to a similar question that does work when the link is on a Chrome webpage, Shift + Left Click.
Unfortunately, Left Click does not work for me opening a .webloc file on MacOS Mojave 10.14.6 with Chrome 84. It opens as a new tab in the most recently used Chrome window.
I'm interested in the answers offered at How to make Chrome open a new window for external Links. Unfortunately Comment 1 on the question says "this solution works" but other users report there that one or another of the multiple solutions on that page do not work for them.
In addition, the most recent version of Chrome mentioned in those answers is Chrome 45 and we're nearly 40 versions past that to date. So I'm asking if anyone knows of something that works, rather than experimenting with complicated, programming solutions that are already identified as not working.
Any suggestions?

Here is an option to consider...
Use an Automator Service/Quick Action1, via Finder, to open the URL contained in the .webloc file in a new window of Google Chrome.
1 In macOS Mojave, and later, an Automator Service is called a Quick Action. The use of terms separated with a / is to denote the differences between Automator prior to macOS Mojave and from it onwards.
The Automator Service/Quick Action can be triggered from the Services context menu via right-click (option-click) on the selected .webloc file(s) in Finder, or after selecting the .webloc file(s) in Finder press the keyboard shortcut assigned to the Automator Service/Quick Action.

In Automator create a new Service/Quick Action, setting: Service/Workflow receives/receives current [files or folders] in [Finder]

Add a Run AppleScript action, replacing the default code with the following example AppleScript code:

on run {input, parameters}
    repeat with i from 1 to the length of input
        set thisItem to the POSIX path of item i of input
        if thisItem ends with ".webloc" then
            set dssCommand to ¬
                "/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \"Print :URL\" " & ¬
                quoted form of thisItem
            set thisURL to do shell script dssCommand
            if thisURL starts with "http" then
                tell application "Google Chrome"
                    set the URL of the active tab of ¬
                        (make new window) to thisURL
                end tell
            end if
        end if
    end repeat
end run

Save the Automator Service/Quick Action, e.g.: Open webloc in Google Chrome

Add a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services, e.g.: ⌘G

Notes:
Depending on how the .webloc file was created, it can be either a binary PLIST file or an XML plist text file. The examples below shows https://www.google.com/ as the URL:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>URL</key>
    <string>https://www.google.com/</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Regardless, the example AppleScript code uses a do shell script command to assign the value of the URL to a variable by using PlistBuddy to print the value of URL in the .webloc file. It then opens the URL in a new window in Google Chrome.
The PlistBuddy full output for the example .webloc file, in both forms, above is:
Dict {
    URL = https://www.google.com/
}

However, when configuring it to print the URL directly, its output for the example .webloc file, in both forms, above is just:
https://www.google.com/

As coded, it can handle multiple selected .webloc files opening each in its own window, regardless of how the preferences are set in Google Chrome. It validates that the file(s) passed to the service have a  .webloc file extension, and the value of the thisURL variable starts with http, otherwise the service fails silently.

This Automator Service/Quick Action was tested and worked for me, under macOS High Sierra and macOS Catalina, using both the Services context menu and ⌘G assigned keyboard shortcut of the service on the selected .webloc file(s) in Finder.


Tool for using iPad as RealTime "Chalkboard" on MacOS? Due to Covid-19 I'm holding my lectures as webinar from my iMac (WebEx, Zoom, ...). Meanwhile my setup works, but there is one thing I miss a lot: Drawing sketches in front of the class while I talk about it.
Now, that I own an iPad + Pencil I'm looking for any Mac app that would allow me to

sketch on the iPad (simple, symbolic stuff, just like scribbles on a white board)
while talking on the conference software
see my drawing in a window on the Mac in (kind of...) real time (I can put on the shared screen of my conference software)

Any ideas?
[Edit: iMac 27“ 2020, iPad Air 4 (2020), Pencil 2)]

The best tool I have found for this is the iPad app Notability (I am not affiliated, I am a math professor who is also giving all lectures on Zoom). When I share the screen in Zoom (on my Mac), I am able to select "iPad over AirPlay" as the source for the share.
Notability has a "presentation mode" where you can see the UI to select colors, tools, etc. but it broadcasts through the screen share with the UI hidden (in essentially real time). Zoom works really nice here, your video is broadcast on the side of your "whiteboard" surface.
Notability has some nice tools, and works really well with the pencil (I am using an older iPad pro with the first gen pencil). You can use it to simply draw, you can have it do shape recognition and clean up stuff like rectangles, circles, triangles, etc, options to do straight lines. I am using it for my math classes and like it a lot.


Change keyboard layout permanently I want to permanently change my keyboard layout. Every time I restart my computer, I have to add Spanish ISO layout and delete the US one.

My Macbook has a spanish keyboard but I use OSx in english.

You can rearrange the languages from System Preferences > Languages. Don't delete English but put Spanish ISO first. I've it like that and the config sticks through restarts and the like.


Add samba folder to favorite into finder sidebar I have client stations (OS X Yosemite) bound into Active Directory services. When the user was authorized I prepared his profile from /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/* and settings for machine is synced from Open Directory (practices named magic triangle.)

The record in AD contains samba shared folder for every user. When I enable Show Connected Server in Finder preferences on Desktop, they have icons for this disk on desktop.

How do I add this link into favorites in Finder sidebar?

In section Servers there is a general link to Share Disk and I need link to a specific folder for every logged-in user as a link on their Desktops.

Are there best practices I should be following?

Without practise when every user drag and drop the link from desktop to favorite? My users every day change the working place and this practise is wrong.

thanks for all answers.

I found out, that the following process adds a folder mounted on a samba share to the sidebar/favorites in my finder. They 'survive' a restart of my mac. I guess they also work as intended if you reboot the NAS/server/whatever. To achieve that, do execute the following steps:

Mount the shared folder (it should be listed in the sidebar under 'Shared' within the finder).
Within the finder, go to View -> Show Path Bar
Navigate to the folder within your SMB share so that you are in the folder that you wish to add to the sidebar.
Grab the icon at the bottom above your status bar left of the name of the folder you are in and drag it to your sidebar.
With a click on this sidebar folder you should land/stay in your desired folder on your samba share.
(optional step) Go to View -> 'Hide Path Bar' if you don't like this additional information.


Does this usage pattern warrant getting more memory? So this is about an old MacBook Pro - just old enough to have user replaceable memory.
The memory usage usually stays in the green, but the size of the Cached Files + Memory Used usually adds up to the total memory. My guess is the computer tries to keep some RAM free for working.
I notice some lag in switching apps when many are open - even though memory usage is in the green.
Does this warrant increasing the RAM to 16GB from 8?
Attached are  pics - one from htop and another from the activity monitor, and another from top, to show the usage.

In general, operating systems tend to work towards having "cache + memory used" equal the actual amount of physical memory. The more that is cached, the greater the likelihood that certain operations can be sped up.
In general having more RAM means that the operating system with the same work load is able to cache more things, which could potentially speed some operations up. It is not however an indicator that you "need" more RAM as such.
However, your screenshots does indicate that you're using 1.8 GB of swap. That could be an indicator that more RAM is necessary. Coupled with the fact that you experience a lag when switching apps - it does sound likely that more RAM could be helpful.
I would try using the Terminal and running the command top. It will show a list of processes running on your Mac, and at the top it will list the number of "swapins" and "swapouts". If you have top running in a visible window, and then try switching between the apps that you use - then check if the those two numbers start rising when you experience the lag. If that's the case, I think a RAM upgrade would most probably improve the situation.


Where does Apple's predictive keyboard get its "contextual" content from? So I was playing around with the iOS 8, when I notice that upon typing "new" anywhere, the predictive keyboard suggests the term "NewTerm". I recall using this word in a tweet, so I brushed it off. But then, when writing the word "swift", the keyboard suggested "Swisslapse" upon having written "swi". Now this shocked me quite a bit, as I have only used the term "Swisslapse" in a private iMessage chat, which had been deleted three months back (from all my devices). I tried typing a few other words that I had used recently in Safari (running in private mode), but to my relief the keyboard did not suggest them.

However, this creates a couple of questions:

Does Apple cache my iMessage chats?
Does Apple cache my keyboard input in selected apps?
Is it possible to request a purge of my caches?
How can I disable further caching (if any).

I think it would be helpful to add that I had installed iOS 8 on the 9th of September, right after the GM seed was released to the developer center. Therefore it is impossible for iOS 8's predictive keyboard to have learnt these words at time of input.

Based on the answer provided by Brian Nickel, iOS added the words to my local keyboard dictionary (i.e. words I want autocorrect to learn), which I then synced to iOS 8 while restoring my device from a backup; which resulted into the predictive keyboard suggesting them when seemingly necessary.

So it seems that Apple isn't infringing upon our privacy after all. Glad to have that cleared up!

If you read the Apple patents there is a explanation how it works.

US patents

Patent No. 8,232,973 for a "Method, device, and graphical user interface providing word recommendations for text input"

and

Apple’s U.S Patent No. 8,074,172 for a "method, system, and graphical user interface for providing word recommendations" or predictive text.

  …..However, the size of these portable communication devices also
  restricts the size of the text input device, such as a physical or
  virtual keyboard, in the portable device. With a size-restricted
  keyboard, designers are often forced to make the keys smaller or
  overload the keys. Both may lead to typing mistakes and thus more
  backtracking to correct the mistakes. This makes the process of
  communication by text on the devices inefficient and reduces user
  satisfaction with such portable communication devices.

  .....The set of strings are compared against a dictionary. Words in the
  dictionary that have any of the set of strings as a prefix are
  identified (206). As used herein, "prefix" means that the string is a
  prefix of a word in the dictionary or is itself a word in the
  dictionary. A dictionary, as used herein, refers to a list of words.
  The dictionary may be pre-made and stored in the memory. The
  dictionary may also include usage frequency rankings for each word in
  the dictionary. A usage frequency ranking for a word indicates (or
  more generally, corresponds to) the statistical usage frequency for
  that word in a language. In some embodiments, the dictionary may
  include different usage frequency rankings for different variants of a
  language. For example, a dictionary of words in the English language
  may have different usage frequency rankings with respect to American
  English and British English.

  In some embodiments, the dictionary may be customizable. That is,
  additional words may be added to the dictionary by the user.
  Furthermore, in some embodiments, different applications may have
  different dictionaries with different words and usage frequency
  rankings. For example, an email application and an SMS application may
  have different dictionaries, with different words and perhaps
  different usage frequency rankings within the same language.

  The identified words are the candidate words that may be presented to
  the user as recommended replacements for the input sequence. The
  candidate words are scored (208). Each candidate word is scored based
  on a character-to-character comparison with the input sequence and
  optionally other factors. Further details regarding the scoring of
  candidate words are described below, in relation to FIGS. 3 and 7A-7C.
  A subset of the candidate words are selected based on predefined
  criteria (210) and the selected subset is presented to the user (212).
  In some embodiments, the selected candidate words are presented to the
  user as a horizontal listing of words.

Graphical view:

I did not intend to provide a complete explanation on how it works, but provide a guide to it.

So what about

Notice my dictionary does not have it so it is red underlined and it is recommending to look it up.

The choices are:

1- look it up and correct

2- add to dictionary as typed

3- ignore it

The predictive keyboard logic will take in account all 3 inputs. Even the ignored version, and it will assume it is what I wanted. So in your case, you probably did not add it to your dictionary, but used that word more than once, so it became marked as the most probable (predictive).


Xcode failed to download, use the purchases page to try again I continue to get this error each time I try to install xcode:
"Xcode failed to download, use the purchases page to try again"

This is with the newest OSX 10.10.3.

I found this thread:
Xcode failed to download. Use the Purchases page to try again

I tried the two possible solutions:
1) Resetting the App Store app via "Debug --> Reset Application" does nothing as far as I can tell (there's no visual feedback that selecting that option does anything).
2) I tried to find the plist file in /private/var/folders/, but the directory there is empty.

I've tried deleting xcode, reinstalling, etc, etc.  I found this crash report via system log which...seems bad...seg fault?:

Process:               softwareupdated [711]
Path:                  /System/Library/CoreServices/Software Update.app/Contents/Resources/softwareupdated
Identifier:            softwareupdated
Version:               744.10
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        launchd [1]
Responsible:           softwareupdated [711]
User ID:               200

Date/Time:             2015-04-10 10:00:00.603 -0700
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.10.3 (14D131)
Report Version:        11
Anonymous UUID:        <redacted>

Sleep/Wake UUID:       <redacted>

Time Awake Since Boot: 7300 seconds
Time Since Wake:       980 seconds

Crashed Thread:        11  Dispatch queue: com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.SUCatalogDataManager.Handler

Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x000000012f939380

VM Regions Near 0x12f939380:
    MALLOC_LARGE           000000010c43f000-000000010d293000 [ 14.3M] rw-/rwx SM=PRV
-->
    JS JIT generated code  00003bb82f600000-00003bb82f601000 [    4K] ---/rwx SM=NUL

I encountered this problem many times, and I found today that it's caused by lack of disk space.

In my machine there is more than 7GB spare space, and after downloading the files, it reported this error.

Today I find the real problem from /private/var/log/install.log, it is caused by low disk space, so I made more space, and the update succeeded.

Since the download is 6 GB you'll want to delete old versions and have at least 15 GB free space before trying again to download. Look in /var/folders for paused / stuck downloads as well as perhaps cleaning any local time machine snapshots once you delete a large app like Xcode. Even after emptying trash, it will consume space for a few days or longer if you don't regularly have a Time Machine volume attached to let the snapshots age out.


Yosemite: Quick Look previews are transparent Since Yosemite i'm having this strange problem with Quick Look (giving previews of files when pressing the space bar): whenever i preview my files they are displayed transparently. Pretty irritating for images, and very inconvenient for text files (see image).

I've tried switching off the 'Reduce transparency' option in the Accessibility preference pane, but to no avail.

Does anyone know if this is a bug in Yosemite or some strange setting i can change?

Instead of rebooting, you can simply enter "killall quicklookd" in Terminal.
That fixed it.