Where is the incompatible software folder?

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Level 1

4 points

Where is the incompatible software folder?

I have a slew of Power PC software on my computer and I know they will not work with Lion. I also know that such software was supposed to get dumped into a folder called "Incompatible software" that would be located in the root directory of my hard drive. I have searched and searched for this folder and cannot find it.

Did Lion fail to locate the gobs and gobs of incompatible software? Will I need to go through manually to find all the nonworking software or is there an easier way?

Please help.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Nov 1, 2011 1:10 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 1, 2011 1:38 PM in response to MiniLaura

It's supposed to be in the root directory according to this:

Mac OS X v10.6, OS X Lion: About incompatible software

I don't have any PPC apps on my machine to check but if you sort the Applications folder by Kind would that show them?

Regards,

Colin R.

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Answer 2

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Nov 1, 2011 5:50 PM in response to MiniLaura

Only a few items are put into the Incompatible Software folder automatically.

PPC apps are not moved there; they just have their icons overlaid with a white circle with a line through it.

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Answer 3

Nov 1, 2011 6:02 PM in response to Pondini

I went to About This Mac/more Info/System Report/Software/Applications/set the top menu to Kind and scrolled down. It showed me ant PPC files still on my system.

Hope this helps.

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Answer 4

MiniLaura Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 2, 2011 4:56 AM in response to Pondini

Ah ha! That's it. But PPC software is incompatible. Why aren't they moved there? Is apple teasing us to make us think that someday they will be compatible? (I don't actually expect and answer to that second question.)

Interestingly though, I have some Classic software that didn't get moved to an incompatible software folder either.

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Answer 5

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Nov 2, 2011 7:00 AM in response to MiniLaura

It's only software "known" to cause problems. From the article Colin linked to:

Summary

Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard and OS X Lion are designed to protect your Mac from certain incompatible software that can quit unexpectedly or cause other issues.

Apple doesn't explain why it does things, but presumably since PPC apps won't run at all, they won't cause problems, and Apple doesn't want to take the time to move them all.

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