REBUILD DESK TOP

I'm using an Apple Power PC G4, PCI Graphics with
OSX10.4.11. The signal is coming from a Belkin router
to an Aeropad.
When I was using my imac I was told to rebuild the
"desk top" about every 3 months. Should I be doing
this with my G4? If so, how?
Michael.

In article
<4976144c-f109-4005-88f5->,
wrote:

> I'm using an Apple Power PC G4, PCI Graphics with
> OSX10.4.11. The signal is coming from a Belkin router
> to an Aeropad.
> When I was using my imac I was told to rebuild the
> "desk top" about every 3 months. Should I be doing
> this with my G4? If so, how?
> Michael.

I believe that there is no such thing as rebuilding the desktop under OS
X. That was a purely OS 9 and earlier thing.

--
"Momma always said, "Stupid is as stupid does."" -Forest Gump

"You can't fix stupid." -Jim White, local radio personality

In article
4976144c-f109-4005-88f5-5d9e2e74fc58...oglegroups.com,
at wrote on 11/27/08 6:51 PM:

> I'm using an Apple Power PC G4, PCI Graphics with
> OSX10.4.11. The signal is coming from a Belkin router
> to an Aeropad.
> When I was using my imac I was told to rebuild the
> "desk top" about every 3 months. Should I be doing
> this with my G4? If so, how?
> Michael.

The Desktop File keeps track of the docs and apps in pre-OS X Mac OSs.
"Rebuilding" was something you did when the File got corrupted, causing the
Finder to lose track of things, causing icons to become generic, docs unable
to find their parent apps, and overall performance slowdowns. It was simply
a matter of holding down the Option and Command keys while rebooting -- the
OS would "rebuild" the File as it booted up. As it was no big deal to do, it
was typically recommended that you do it about once a month as a "general
maintenance" measure.

In OS X, things don't work that way, so it doesn't apply. HOWEVER, if you
have the ability to run Classic on your OS X Mac (i.e., pre-Intel Macs),
then "rebuilding" makes sense, and it's done from System Preferences.

For a more-complete explanation, see
<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2344?viewlocale=en_US>.


--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) € OS X (10.5.4)

Mike Rosenberg wrote:
> Elijah Baley <> wrote:
>
>> I believe that there is no such thing as rebuilding the desktop under OS
>> X. That was a purely OS 9 and earlier thing.
>
> And even then it was just urban legend vodoo mumbo jumbo that you needed
> to rebuild it on a regular basis as some sort of maintenance thing.
>
The real answer was, "Turn on VM". or "Turn off VM". In either event, if
'it' got fixed, it was ususally the rebooting that did it.

--
john mcwilliams

In article <1ir2xl6.cwlj28ruytgrN%mikePOST@TOGROUPmacconsult. com>,
(Mike Rosenberg) wrote:

> And even then it was just urban legend vodoo mumbo jumbo that you needed
> to rebuild it on a regular basis as some sort of maintenance thing.

The only time it was really useful is if you trashed software on a
regular basis or if it became corrupted somehow, which (honestly)
happened (but rarely).

Although looking back, I wonder if a computer had bad RAM a very large
desktop database could push applications up into it and cause problems
that way.

In article <C554B7E8.1CE55%nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com>,
Nick Naym <nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com> wrote:

> In OS X, things don't work that way, so it doesn't apply. HOWEVER, if you
> have the ability to run Classic on your OS X Mac (i.e., pre-Intel Macs),
> then "rebuilding" makes sense, and it's done from System Preferences.

Even if your computer *can* run Mac OS Classic, if you don't have a
classic system folder, this doesn't apply. (Obviously, but I want to
make that clear to OP.)

In article sdfisher-, Steven
Fisher at wrote on 11/27/08 10:50 PM:

> In article <C554B7E8.1CE55%nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com>,
> Nick Naym <nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In OS X, things don't work that way, so it doesn't apply. HOWEVER, if you
>> have the ability to run Classic on your OS X Mac (i.e., pre-Intel Macs),
>> then "rebuilding" makes sense, and it's done from System Preferences.
>
> Even if your computer *can* run Mac OS Classic, if you don't have a
> classic system folder, this doesn't apply. (Obviously, but I want to
> make that clear to OP.)


Good point. It also should be clear from
<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2344?viewlocale=en_US>: "In Mac OS X,
rebuilding the Desktop file is only applicable to the Classic environment."





--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) € OS X (10.5.4)

In article <1ir40p1.119zazc1f7j906N%mikePOST@TOGROUPmacconsul t.com>,
(Mike Rosenberg) wrote:

> AND it only makes sense if there are actual desktop-related problems
> that need fixing.

It wasn't voodoo, though. The database, or file, or whatever got full or
corrupted and all your desktop icons would revert to generics.
Rebuilding would fix this.
--
W. Oates

In article 001fab02$0$6640$, Warren Oates at
wrote on 11/28/08 5:43 PM:

> In article <1ir40p1.119zazc1f7j906N%mikePOST@TOGROUPmacconsul t.com>,
> (Mike Rosenberg) wrote:
>
>> AND it only makes sense if there are actual desktop-related problems
>> that need fixing.
>
> It wasn't voodoo, though. The database, or file, or whatever got full or
> corrupted and all your desktop icons would revert to generics.
> Rebuilding would fix this.


Actually, TechTool enabled you to delete the file and create a new one from
scratch, the idea being that a brand-new file was inherently "cleaner" than
a corrupted one that had been "rebuilt."





--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) € OS X (10.5.4)

In article <C555F0A1.1D0A5%nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com>,
Nick Naym <nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com> wrote:

> Actually, TechTool enabled you to delete the file and create a new one from
> scratch, the idea being that a brand-new file was inherently "cleaner" than
> a corrupted one that had been "rebuilt."

Indeed. How quickly we forget. I used Conflict Catcher, which I think
did that for me on every reboot. There were lots of reboots in them days.
--
W. Oates