On 1 Oct 2006 at 14:16, Darcy James Argue wrote: > On 01 Oct 2006, at 2:10 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > > Something is wrong with the design of OS X's security subsystem if > > it has to be constantly repaired. > > It doesn't. Earlier versions of OS X were prone to permissions > errors, but this hardly ever happens any more. I have a script set to > automatically repair permissions weekly, but that's more out of habit > than anything.
It never should have been a problem in a robustly designed system, seems to me. Do you know if the problem was due to misbehaving applications or a problem with OS X? You can certainly screw up the permissions in Windows to get it in an unbootable state. I've done it while trying to lock down NT 4 (fortunately I was able to boot to a command prompt on a floppy disk and change the ACLs to get it bootable again; this is c. 1998), and there's no easy way short of reinstalling Windows to get back the default permissions (I'd like to have a script that would reset to default permissions on Windows, but it's only because I've fiddled with permissions that I'd ever have needed it -- it's not something that I've ever seen happen without meddling from a human being like me). But application installations and regular Windows updates and OS operations can never screw up permissions in a way that causes unreliable operation of the OS or of applications. So, I have a hard time understanding why OS X was ever so fragile in this regard. > It's pretty rare that someone actually needs to repair > their permissions, although people still counsel this as a generic > first step for anyone having problems with their setup. The same way, perhaps, that voodoo Windows troubleshooters start out "reinstall Windows." -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
