[squish]

This is somebody else's computer, and i messed it up. I need help immediately!

OK, I have 10.2.3, I set the language in International sysprefs to Spanish (I dragged it to the top of the list), It said i needed to logout/in, so i did, then when i logged back in, the Finder dind't run!

THe dock is there, I can run a few programs, but the Terminal won't dispaly any windows and system prefs won't RUN!

WHAT do i DO?!! this is extremely urgent, please help guys.

thanks

P.S. this is a cross-post from an ars post I made here

[ColonelSawtooth]

Try logging in as another user and resetting the language if you can.

If this isn't an option, restart the machine and see if that helps.

If the problems still persists, restart the machine into single user mode (hold down command-s on startup) and delete the com.apple.finder.plist file located in the users Library/Preferences directory.

Let me know if you need help with the commands to delete the file.

[squish]

yes, please give me the commands to delete the file.

this is extremely urgent so please hurry.

[Detrius]

cd /Users/*theuser's_name*/Library/Preferences
rm com.apple.finder.plist

This is of course AFTER booting into single user mode and following the directions that the terminal spits out at you.

[squish]

I deleted teh finder plist and a whole bunch of other system-related ones, didn't help...what do i do now???

[CharlesS]

You can try opening the .GlobalPreferences.plist file found in the user's Library/Preferences folder with a text editor and reordering the AppleLanguages array so that English is back on the top.

However, if simply changing the language was able to do this much damage, I would suspect the system was already somewhat borked before you even touched it.

Have you tried running fsck (or DiskWarrior, if you have it) on the drive?

[squish]

fsck says the drive looks OK.

i'm gonna try globalprefs now...

if anybody has any ideas, please post. I need to fix this immediately

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by squish:
I deleted teh finder plist and a whole bunch of other system-related ones, didn't help...what do i do now???

A more appropriate solution would have been to move the files aside, not delete them. Now many of his/her settings are gone. Good luck explaining this to your friend. Didn't your mother teach not to play with other people's things?

~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist is the file you need to edit. I agree with CharlesS, there is definitely something wrong with that machine for it to have had these problems. An app will still launch even if it doesn't have the preferred language. It will just load the next most suitable language it can.

[JoeBruin]

Download Pacifist and reinstall the Finder from the OS X install CD's.