.viminfo and other mysteries

With two more new hard drives in as many days - I'm once again re-doing my install (read: asking for trouble).

First step is backups - for this I'm testing Synchronize Pro X - I bought SuperDuper but determined there are somethings about it I don't like so I've kept looking for my 'long-term' backup solution. TimeMachine will still be used to capture hourly backups/versioning.

When I backed up my current User directory - some files failed due to permission. The files were:

guest: .CFUserTestEncoding
user1: .asadminpass
user1: .asadmintruststore
user1: Library:Preferencees:com.prosofteng.databackup:restartinfo
user1: .viminfo

Using Terminal I ran ls -ale to check permissions - which look like this:

-rw------- 1 user1 staff 3 26 Mar 15:09 .CFUserTextEncoding
-rw------- 1 root staff 118 6 Apr 01:49 .asadminpass
-rw------- 1 root staff 807 6 Apr 01:49 .asadmintruststore
-rw------- 1 root staff 936 12 Apr 20:07 .viminfo

I'm setup with the HD configuration outlined here - which I like:
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/guides/MoveUsers.php

However, it means my User directory is not on the OS disk and thus "fix permissions" in Disk Utility cannot be used - or rather, it has no impact.

For that reason as well, this is not a bootable backup that I am running - simply want to clone the User directory.

After quite a bit of Googling - I'm guessing I could do the following to resolve:

.CFUserTextEncoding:
I think I should be able to simply replace the entire "guest" folder under Users with the "guest" folder that is generated with the new OS installation on the new hard drive. I don't use this account, so it should all be defaults. Anyone have a reason why I shouldn't do this?

.asadminpass / .asadmintruststore
I don't know what these are but they seem to be related to NetBeans / GlassFish - which I have installed. I figured I could just un-install and then re-install NetBeans on new OS installation.

The Library Preference file in question belongs to another backup software I was testing - I can just uninstall it - don't need it.

.viminfo
No idea what this is. Is it related to VIM Editor? It seems to be part of Mac OS install - and causes problems if it's not working properly. Can I replace the current old one with one from the clean OS install - if so - how do I copy / replace hidden files from one drive to another?

I really would like to just do a clean install and not even keep my User file - reinstall apps and everything. However, I am nervous to do this because I have keychain in use and wondering if I can/will lock myself out of files such as Mail, etc. Applications I can uninstall before I install on the new harddrive so that should avoid any licensing issues.

Need some advise from someone "in the know" please.

Mac Pro 2.8 (Early 2008), Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jun 19, 2008 1:51 PM

Reply
2 replies

Jun 19, 2008 10:20 PM in response to Booker T.

.viminfo
No idea what this is. Is it related to VIM Editor? It seems to be part of Mac OS install - and causes problems if it's not working properly. Can I replace the current old one with one from the clean OS install - if so - how do I copy / replace hidden files from one drive to another?


You are correct, that file goes with the VIM editor, which is just a more feature-rich workalike to the old Unix standard Vi. The .viminfo file is used by VIM to store state, for example your command line history, search string history, search patterns, etc, between invocations of the editor. This file doesn't even need to be there for VIM to work (it will be created if missing). So, you can either replace that file, or just outright remove it, without issue.

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.viminfo and other mysteries

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