[danbrew]

Most operating systems allow you to run two instances of the same application. I can't figure out how to do this on OS X - anybody know? The big thing I'm trying to do is run two instances of a terminal application that will allow me to connect to two different terminal sessions at once. Using the Mac terminal client isn't an option - nor are other third party apps - I've got to use this client (RDC for Windows). Suggestions?

thanks - danbrew

[Moose]

Originally posted by danbrew:
Most operating systems allow you to run two instances of the same application. I can't figure out how to do this on OS X - anybody know? The big thing I'm trying to do is run two instances of a terminal application that will allow me to connect to two different terminal sessions at once. Using the Mac terminal client isn't an option - nor are other third party apps - I've got to use this client (RDC for Windows). Suggestions?

thanks - danbrew

Make a copy of the application. You cannot run multiple instances of an application in Mac OS like you can in Windows.

[Guy Incognito 2]

Try making a duplicate of the app...

[geekwagon]

RDC is about the only application that this is a problem for. Almost any other program I have seen allows you to open multiple windows within the one application that is running, which is way more efficient. For some stupid reason, RDC doesn't support doing this.

[Brass]

I think it will work if you make a copy of the application, as others have mentioned. However, you could try this if you want to avoid doubling the disk space the application takes up.

Instead of copying the application, make a hard link to it. NB: This is NOT a symbolic link nor an alias. This is a read file-system level directory entry for the original node on disk, not a pointer to original directory entry.

Ie, if you create a hard link to a file, then delete the original file, the new link to the file still exists, as does the file it points to. Note that all of your original files are accessed via a single hard link, but you can create additional hard links to those files if you wish. The file is only deleted when the last hard link to it is removed.

To create a hard link in the Terminal, type:

ln <original-file-path> <new-file-path>

(ie, same as soft links, but without the "-s")

[SMacTech]

It depends too on how the application was developed. It can prevent from multiple instances just by placing a lock on a necessary plist file that it may want read-write access too. I have an OS X app that I developed and could run 100 instances of it if I had the inclination to do so.

Sometimes you don't want multiple copies of an app to have that feature as in Windows. Does multiple installers of Office running sound familiar?

[jayg]

As mentioned earlier, any app that you need to do this for is poorly designed... but you can do this from the terminal. Just type the path to the executable that you want to run. Put it in the background, and do it again. You have to find the real executable though, not the .app bundle that the Finder uses. For example, for Safari use:

/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari&

Note that some apps might act weird since they often assume they have exclusive access to preference files, databases and the like.