Instructions I've found. These are supposed to work but YMMV:
ATTENTION, MAC PRO USERS!
By now, you all know that Front Row Enabler doesn’t work on Intel Macs. So, is there a solution, apart from waiting for someone to disassemble the Intel BezelServices? You bet!
Some time ago I encountered the indication found at
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=10470, but, somehow, adding the custom-made FrontRowPass.kext according to the indications found at that site didn’t work for me. This afternoon I began thinking that there might be some dependency between this kernel extension file and some other property that just didn’t work on a Mac Pro. So I decided that the actual solution might be in fooling the system into believing that one of the already existent kernel extensions described a device that was a make-believe infra-red remote receiver. Well, what do you know? All Mac Pro owners have a keyboard and an optical Mighty Mouse. I did the trick with the mouse kext, called AppleHIDMouse.kext, but I guess I similar thing can be done with the Apple keyboard or with almost anything.
Although there might be more elegant or efficient ways of doing it, these are the precise steps I took.
Using the Finder, I navigated to Macintosh HD/System/Library/Extensions.
After visually locating AppleHIDMouse.kext, I dragged it onto my desktop. As it is protected, it doesn’t get moved; just copied.
Once it was on my desktop, I right-clicked it and made a duplicate, just in case something went horribly wrong and had to manually restore my system after doing what I intended to do.
I right-clicked the AppleHIDMouse.kext on my desktop and, on the pop-up menu, selected Show Package Contents.
A Finder window opens showing a Contents folder. Double-click it. You’ll see two folders and two property list files. Right-click on Info.plist. Although you can select Open and that would probably open the file with Property List Editor, your setup might be different and that might open it with OmniOutliner. If you are comfortable with OmniOutliner, you’re on your own. In case you want to stay with me, however, when the popup menu shows, select Open With and then make sure you select Property List Editor.
Info.plist will be opened by OmniOutliner. In the property list, click on the arrow to the left of Root. A tree of properties will appear. The fifth option from the bottom is called IOKitPersonalities. Click on the arrow to its left.
You’ll see six new properties. Click on the arrow to the left of M19-0a and click on the first property that appears, whatever it is. Press the button New Sibling, in the upper left of the window. A new model string will be inserted. Rename its content to HIDRemoteControl and press Enter. Locate the new HIDRemoteControl line (it’s in alphabetical order). Indicate that it is to contain not a String, but a Boolean value, which, by default, should be Yes.
Navigate downwards until you see M19-0b. click on the arrow to its left and click on the first property that appears, whatever it is. Press the button New Sibling (same as before). A new model string will be inserted. Rename its content to HIDRemoteControl and press Enter. Locate the new HIDRemoteControl line (it’s in alphabetical order). Indicate that it is to contain not a String, but a Boolean value, which, by default, should be Yes.
Navigate downwards until you see M19-1. click on the arrow to its left and click on the first property that appears, whatever it is. Press the button New Sibling (same as before). A new model string will be inserted. Rename its content to HIDRemoteControl and press Enter. Locate the new HIDRemoteControl line (it’s in alphabetical order). Indicate that it is to contain not a String, but a Boolean value, which, by default, should be Yes.
Press Command-S so as to save the changes in the property list.
Close Property List Editor. Close the Contents window.
Now, for the really dangerous part. Move the just edited AppleHIDMouse.kext from your desktop to the Extensions window that should be opened somewhere in your screen. You will be prompted for authorizing the file replacement and probably for your password (one with administrative privileges).
It isn’t over yet. Go to your Applications folder and open Utilities. Open Terminal.
Enter “cd /System/Library/Extensions” without the quotation marks.
Enter “sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHIDMouse.kext” without the quotation marks.
Quit Terminal.
Reboot.
The boot-up process will take a little longer than usual, since the change is detected and a cache needs to be rebuilt.
Login if necessary.
Press Command-Escape. Voilà, Front Row!
This works perfectly on my Mac Pro running Mac OS X 10.4.8 and Front Row 1.3. You may have noticed that I’m not giving any indications whatsoever on how to install Front Row on a Mac Pro. Instilling isn’t necessary because it’s already installed! It’s always been! The only thing that I did install-wise a few days back was to use Andrew Escobar’s Front Row Enabler 1.3.5 for enabling the 1.3 upgrade, even though I know it would serve no real purpose. Now I guess an upcoming 1.3.x or 1.4 Front Row should work flawlessly on my system, or even be automatically updated by System Update.
I don’t suppose there are serious mistakes in the above-described process, but do everything with caution and, before doing it, make sure you know how to undo whatever goes wrong, just in case your system is somehow different from mine. If you have a wireless Mighty Mouse the above solution might not work, I can’t be sure.
So, my friends, enjoy! At least until Apple change AppleHIDMouse.kext. But, even if they do, you already know how to tweak it. And no enabler or BezelServices tweaking is necessary at all!
All the best
Edward
