[captiva]

Where does the Applications folder go in OS X?

Simple question... should be.

There's a long OT thread going on in one of software listservs .. InDesign... I follow.

It started as a request for help because InDy wouldn't allow "regular" (not admin) users in the poster's workgroup to run it when they logged in. They got a message about a locked volume or something. If you logged in as a user with admin, no problem.

So the topic veered off into setting privileges for items in the Applications folder.

Turns out 99% of the people posting to the thread assumed that the Applications folder should be in the User's folder.

Only one person said that no, the Applications folder is at the top level, above Users, and there's no way an Applications folder could be in a User folder unless someone created one there or dragged one there.

Even people from Apple stores insisted that Application folders go into User folders.

People started quoting from OS X third-party books about it.

Would appreciate any definitive info here. Is there any circumstance where the OS X installer would put the Applications folder inside a User folder? Is there any reason why a user should put it/create one there himself? What if they are the only user on the Mac (as goes the logic of some of the posters)?

And btw if anyone has a solution to that problem of users without admin privileges not being able to run apps (whereever they are located), that would help.

cap
(sneaking one last question into this... does Repair Privileges fix non-Apple applications as well as Apple stuff?)

[Developer]

The Applications folder is located at the root of the hard disk. By default, there is no Applications folder in the user's home folder. However a user might create an Applications folder in his home folder for himself. That's a perfectly good Applications folder and fully recognized by the OS. A user might want to do this if he isn't an admin and doesn't have sufficient privileges to install an application in the top level Applications folder. Or just because he doesn't want to share all applications with everyone else on the computer.
I haven't seen an installer that creates an Applications folder in a user's home folder yet. That would be odd.

[captiva]

Thanks for the info. I would assume that if you installed an app in your user folder, then there'd be no way that other users, admins or not, could access it, right? Even if you put an alias to it in Shared?

Here's part of a post about installers someone sent to the list:

-----------
I believe when an account is created, the default user folder is modeled after

/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj

this template may be modified, and often is in large sites.. a user Applications folder is also created by some installers.
-----------

... I've never heard of any 3rd party installer doing this and would be interested to see if anyone knows of one/some.

cap

[Developer]

Originally posted by captiva:
Thanks for the info. I would assume that if you installed an app in your user folder, then there'd be no way that other users, admins or not, could access it, right? Even if you put an alias to it in Shared?

Normally that is correct. You could change the privileges to allow others to execute stuff in your Applications folder, but then what is the point?

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by captiva:
Thanks for the info. I would assume that if you installed an app in your user folder, then there'd be no way that other users, admins or not, could access it, right? Even if you put an alias to it in Shared?

Correct. If you want all users to be able to use an application, put it in the root-level Applications folder.