Removing Classic before upgrading to Lion

Question

Removing Classic before upgrading to Lion

My Intel Mac has a lot of old Classic stuff on it, as the result of using Migration Assistant from an older Mac. Before I upgrade to Lion, I have been eliminating or replacing old PowerPC apps. I also want to clean out old Classic stuff. Some of it easy to identify. But I'm not sure about one area in particular.

I have a folder labeled "System", which has an X on the folder icon (for Mac OS X), which contains the subfolder "Library". I also have a folder labeled "System Folder" without the X. It contains a lot of things which I can definitely identify as Classic (Mac OS 9).

Is this "System Folder" left over from OS 9, and can I delete the whole thing?

Thanks,

Marcia 😕

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 15, 2012 1:12 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 15, 2012 1:14 PM in response to sweetgardener

Just delete the "System Folder" folder as it belongs to OS 9.

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Answer 2

Feb 15, 2012 1:42 PM in response to Kappy

Kappy, thanks for the very quick answer. I did remove that folder, and everything works fine. But I have a further question.

I now see that the folder labeled "System" which has in it one subfolder labeled "Library", is almost (but not quite) the duplicate of another top level folder labeled "Library". See simple hierarchy below. Is one of these also left over from OS 9?

MacIntosh HD

Library

System

Library

And perhaps a better question, when I upgrade to Lion, will these folders be overwritten by new ones, and is all my worrying a moot point?

Thanks again,

Marcia

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 15, 2012 2:01 PM in response to sweetgardener

OS X installs the following folders at the root directory:

Applications

Library

System

Users

Do not remove any of them nor their content as they are required by OS X. Lion's installation will modify the contents of the Applications, Library, and System folders. The Users folder is not modified by software installations or changes. It contains the individual user folders that contain the files belonging to the users. Usually, there is only one user folder - yours. It is named whatever you have chosen as your username.

So there is nothing you need be worried about.

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