Appleworks crash

Try applying the latest security update for 10.6.8. There was a problem with one release of it that disabled Rosetta. If that does not solve the problem, try repairing permissions with Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility. If you are trying to open a document to launch Appleworks, try launching the application directly from the Applications folder instead. Lastly, if that doesn't solve the problem, many times Appleworks will get a corrupted recent document file, in the Hard drive -> users yourname -> Documents -> Appleworks folder.

Or it's being caused by the Flashback malware, the early versions of which crashed PPC apps. As a brody suggests, install the latest security -- and Java updates.

You can download one of my PowerPC ((PPC) scripts* on http://www.macmaps.com/software.html

and see if it launches. If it gets to the password screen, your Rosetta is functioning normally, and we need to look at possibly reinstalling Appleworks. If it crashes, the something is wrong with your Rosetta install. Reinstalling Rosetta is described here:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/27987.html

As long as you don't plan on upgrading past 10.6.8, it is practical. Once you do, you'll have to seek alternatives, since there is no Rosetta in 10.7 and up, and Macs whose internal components changed by Apple outside of RAM, hard drive, or optical drive on and/or after July 20, 2011 may not be able to run 10.6.8 or earlier.

If you do decide that you need Lion, but must continue with Appleworks, and want concurrent access, consider Snow Leopard (and Rosetta) installed into Parallels 7 in Lion:

Full installation instructions here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439

As far as I can tell, AppleWorks is not a top priority of Apple. This is pure speculation, but it's based on the fact that AW has not been updated for many years, and the iWork suite suite has been around for a while now. For better or worse, Apple seems to move forward and abandon old hardware and software at some point, and I think that point is really really soon (or already past) for AW. I'm pretty sure iWork will open old AW files, so your most reliable option may be to spend $60 or so and get iWork.

http://www.apple.com/support/appleworks/faq/

http://www.apple.com/iwork/?siclientid=6381&sessguid=e2528ff8-38a7-46b1-addf-d2d 22d7910b1&userguid=e2528ff8-38a7-46b1-addf-d2d22d7910b1&permguid=e2528ff8-38a7-4 6b1-addf-d2d22d7910b1

iWork will read old presentation, spreadsheet, and word processing documents from Appleworks, but not Draw, Paint, nor Database. The link in "alternatives" in my previous post is in my user tip on what you can use in its place. I suggest reading it before speculating.

There are also methods of doing this with VirtualBox-4.1.0-73009-OSX.dmg the only two question remain are will VirtualBox or Parallels continue to support this indefinitely on newer Macs that don't have Snow Leopard installer discs? Snow Leopard also as a client may not be licensed to run in virtual environments, but Server is. And I'm not sure about the difficulty of installing Server, or its compatibility with Appleworks. So you have to consider those factors too.

a brody wrote:

...the only two question remain are:

1. will VirtualBox or Parallels continue to support this indefinitely on newer Macs that don't have Snow Leopard installer discs?

2. Snow Leopard also as a client may not be licensed to run in virtual environments, but Server is...

1. "Necessity if the Mother of Invention" - When my iMac G5 died last Fall, I replaced it with the mid-2011 Mac Mini, which only comes with Lion (although there is another thread on this site that details how to "downgrade" that machine to Snow Leopard, an option I personally was not interested in achieving).

There are always questions about the future. As I note in my Cautionary Notes #3 (located two posts after my installation instructions):

The whole point here of using Snow Leopard/Snow Leopard Server in Parallels 7 is to gain access to Rosetta, so that, in this case, Appleworks will run. Will Parallels "X" work with Snow Leopard/Snow Leopard Server when the successor to Mountain Lion is introduced? Today, no one can say for sure.

If not, the OP is no worse off than he is now with Appleworks not running in Lion, and is much better off, for the additional time that he was able to gain access to his AppleWorks files, utiling his "today's" hardware and his "today's" version of OS X Lion (which will presumably continue until the hardware dies).

Another consideration with using modern "equivalents" to AppleWorks, is that some files will translate but require a considerable amount of "fix-it" work to regain close to 100% of the functionality that AppleWorks gave to it. For example, one AppleWorks user who now utilizes my Snow Leopard in Parallels 7 solution in Lion is a professional landscape photographer who owns legacy film preparation/scanning hardware with software that will never be updated for Intel (and hence always require Rosetta to run). He also expressed that:

"I depend on some legacy PPC only software for my business – software which will never be upgraded to Universal or Intel versions and for which there are no substitutes or alternatives.: Many high grade film scanners were long ago discontinued, or the manufacturers have exited that business. I also have many old AppleWorks drawing documents which cannot be opened in Pages. The Lion compatible (Intel) versions of some essential utilities for my Epson 4880 printer were released by Epson last December (Epson LFP Remote Panel and Epson Printer Watcher), but these updates are missing many of the useful functions of the previous PPC versions. A fully functional Intel version of the software for my i1 Display 2 colorimeter hardware, used to calibrate monitors, won't be available until September... "

and he has been very happily using this solution for his post-Lion problems:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3913218?answerId=18501036022#18501036022

I have also experienced similar problems with translation of some of my 2004 Excel charts into 2011 Excel, and being able to access these files in Microsoft Excel 2004 eliminates this problem for me.

2. It is a common "Urban Myth" that using Snow Leopard in a virtualized environment in Lion violates the Snow Leopard EULA. There is no point in continuing that debate here, suffice it to say that no one has been able to point to any official statement by Apple in writing that supports the position that the end-user has such a prohibition.

More importantly, for whatever reasons that are between them and Apple (and which are not shared with the public at large), the virtualization companies do not afford the end-user a direct option to install Snow Leopard. My solution continues to work with all available updates to Parallels 7, and again those concerned about this issue should use Snow Leopard Server instead of Snow Leopard.

With any machine past 4 years of age, you have to keep up the PRAM battery every 4 years or so. Glad to hear you have bootable backups for both systems, just remember, to always keep at least separate two copies of your data at all times. A second backup for each system will ensure that is the case in event the system dies. Verify the backup remains bootable every so often, to ensure you don't have to replace it anytime soon. Media for older machines will become harder to replace as time goes on. If you are using one of those Newertech Voyager cases, you can keep up your SATA hard drives indefinitely. Hopefully SATA won't be replaced anytime soon.

They are called Voyager by Newertech. They allow you to plug in any internal 3.5" SATA hard drives in a vertical stand. Look them up on Google, or better yet, buy from http://www.macsales.com/ which I have always liked getting drives from. SATA has been the industry standard hard drive since the first G5s started taking them on Apple's machines, and then when Apple switched to Intel, all hard drives used SATA. Some Voyagers have both Firewire and USB external interfaces which plug in easily to any Mac that have those interfaces.