[zen]

Hi,

I've done loads of searches and it seems the easy way to remove classic from my iBook G4 running 10.3.5 is just drag the OS 9 System Folder into the trash.

But when I do that, I get this error message, then I'm back to square one:



Any ideas?

Zen

[guenter]

i think os x uses os9 fonts
did you try to reboot (or just logout and login) after you put os9 system folder into the trash and empty it afterwards?

[Ron Goodman]

What error message do you get? I seem to remember having to change permissions of the OS 9 system folder to get rid of it. There's nothing in there that OS X needs unless you're trying to run Classic.

[zen]

The message is "The operation cannot be completed because item "System Folder" is required by the System".

I've restarted and the permissions on the System Folder and all its contents are set to read and write.

Zen

[guenter]

you dont start classic on login automatically? (system prer -> classic)

[[APi]TheMan]

The message is not informing you that classic is in use by the system, it's saying that you can't throw it away because it's used by the system. I work with this problem often when I'm creating an image to deploy to users' machines in which I have created a default install of Mac OS X with all applications and settings taken care of (including a custom Classic System Folder).

Having said that, you can move the Classic System folder to the trash from the Terminal if you really desire to:

Code:
sudo mv /System\ Folder/ ~/.Trash/

Funny enough, I was going to explain that, similarly, you cannot throw your Mac OS X System folder away until I tried it on this machine. Not only did it allow me to move the System to the trash, the Finder beachballed and my trash icon became the generic "document" icon. I quickly hopped into one of my open Terminal sessions and moved it back out of my .Trash folder and relaunched the Finder.

Bad example. Sounds like Apple just basically made a rule that if you try to throw away the selected Classic System Folder that they'd error message you. I tried the same procedure with the Mac OS X System folder on a colleague's G5 and it prompted him for an administrator's username and password, mine did not. Keep in mind that I'm logged in as a normal "admin" user (not root), and the permissions on the Mac OS X System folder are the same as his.

Long story short, use the Terminal if you want to overcome ANY Finder limitations.

[KP*]

I just discovered this when I tried to delete Classic yesterday. Here's what worked (requires external drive, presumably an iPod would work too): In System Prefs/Classic there is a box "Select system folder for Classic." Before deleting I had backed up the Classic files to my external HD, so I set the external folder as the Classic system folder. The computer had no problem with this, so I was free to delete the one on the internal HD. Then I ejected the drive, and now no Classic. When I go into the Classic screen in Prefs it just gives me an error warning me that there's no system folder. Come to think of it, you probably don't even need an external drive -- a disc image might work just as well.

So having said all this, is there anything that gets screwed up from deleting Classic besides not being able to run Classic?

[[APi]TheMan]

Originally posted by KP*:
So having said all this, is there anything that gets screwed up from deleting Classic besides not being able to run Classic?

No.

[Ruahrc]

I did the very same thing you guys are talking about. I made a disk image of the Classic system folder and therefore was able to delete it from my HD

I think the other posters are right in that you first have to make your usable disk image (or copy the system folder to a new location) and then go to sysprefs to select your new location as the one to go to when running Classic. Then you can erase your classic system folder on your HD.

Also, what is kinda neat is that if you have it in a disk image, OS X will automatically mount that image when trying to load classic, so the whole process is transparent to you when running classic apps (don't need to load the dmg first before running classic). It won't auto-unmount the disk image after classic shuts down, but you can write a script that will auto-unmount it for you.

Search on Macosxhints.com they have a full step-by-step process there and also a user posetd the code for the script that auto-unmounts the image when you're done.

One thing to note is that I can crash the sysprefs app if I do a certain combination of actions (I think it is to manually mount the classic dmg, start classic, stop classic, and when the sysprefs tries to refresh its window the classic dmg is unmounted and so the sysprefs quits). Something along thse lines. It does not matter though because once you have it set up just never visit the classic pane because ou don' tneed to.

Ruahrc

PS Are there any experienced OS9 users out there who can tell me if I can erase some "junk" from the System Folder for Classic? It's about 181MB and I have read that others have been able to reduce their classic disk images to ~60MB by erasing unnecessary files.