Lost access to Apps after Re-installing OS on separate partition

onion · Jan 31st, 2012, 03:02 AM

I've been playing with a nice G5 DP (14 gig RAM!!!) in 10.5 and decided to try partitioning up the two internal hard drives to keep the OS on a separate partition from my applications and data. All was well until I decided to re-install my OS on the boot partition.

now i've lost all of the registration/authorization information for all of my applications! fortunately, i have a time machine back-up.

can anyone direct me to the files that contain the software authorization for CS3/Aperture/MSOffice etc. If so, i can hopefully grab these files from my time machine back-up drop them into the right place and i'll be able to run my apps again.

thanks,

onion.

IllusionX · Jan 31st, 2012, 09:32 AM

That's not the way to do it.

many applications will install files in /library. So, cleaning your / will also wipe all information related to your applications.
Best is find your registration key and re-register your apps.

I don't see why you would put your apps on a separate partition, time machine should restore everything properly.

pm-r · Jan 31st, 2012, 01:08 PM

You should have done some reading and checking before attempting to do things YOUR way!!

Mac OS X does not work that way normally, especially with Adobe and MS applications as well as many of Apple's apps/suites.

Some installers may allow selection of an alternate location to install, but some don't always work properly if you do. So it's best to just follow the normal rules.

To put things into perspective, you may "own" your Mac, but you're not the boss — basically System and Root are, and luckily they're nice enough to allow you to be an admin user and use your Mac, but in doing so they assume that you know what you're actually doing, especially with software installs.

Have you even seen the warning dialog stating that 'you can't or shouldn't do such and such' ?? That's coming from the real bosses of your Mac — System and Root.

So you may want to start over and get one good working boot volume you can use, and use the other partitions for your data or even another Mac OS X version.

Lawrence · Feb 16th, 2012, 04:27 PM

Heh, I've made that same mistake in the past, I had to reregister all my Apple Pro app's.

Live and learn.