Mac OS X forum: Chaning Sharing & Permission on Utilities Folder in Lion

The problem is that I want to be able to change the permissions of this folder, so that I can change the items in the folder without typing a password. I want to know why I am locked out from being able to change permissions on this folder. It acts like I should be able to add a different user, but it just doesn't stick. Why am I not allowed to change permission on this folder if I have an administrator password? I should be able to do whatever I want. And I want to know how to change permissions on this folder and make them stick. I have fixed permissions. Can you change the permissions on your folder, and add your user to it? I have even re-installed today and it is still not possible

And I don't find the Library a minor annoyance. At the least there should be a way to make it normally visible instead of having to go to the folder.

I'm still not understanding the NEED to change the permissions on this folder. Why do you need write access to it?

And if you want total autonomy over the system, you're using the wrong platform. You want something more like FreeDOS. Even Linux and the other *BSDs tend to set the permissions on key areas such that they cannot be tinkered with easily. You don't want someone being able to just come along and blow away the kernel file by accident do you? Or get rid of some of the key support programs in /usr and /sbin (which exist on Mac OS X too, but AFAIK, they've been hidden from Finder since 10.0) that would basically render the system unusable.

What are you trying to accomplish by altering the permissions on the Utilities folder?

Same goes for the Library folder thing. If you're mucking about in there routinely, then you're doing something wrong. You shouldn't need to ever go into that folder without a rather specific reason, and those reasons should be pretty far and few between. Frankly, the Library folders probably should have been hidden from the beginning. You go messing around with things in there, you're likely just going to create problems for yourself.

Note: This post was edited by a forum moderator to remove personal attacks on 12/09/2011 at 9:53 AM PT

And I am asking if anyone has figured out a way to bypass this, and not your reasons why I should not need to.

And as for the Library thing, I have solved that. Just do this in the terminal as SuperUser

chflags nohidden /Users/Library

This should all have Unix underpinnings, so it shouldn't be able to not let you change permissions on something, but somehow they have.

Mac OS X's ACLs are an overlay to standard Unix permission bits, and that while Apple's developers have done a pretty good job of abstracting the details, it's not perfect. YYou'd also know better than to use folders that have clearly been staked out by Apple. And you'd have the experience to be able to recognize a lost cause when you see one, sigh, and move on.

And be careful when using the command line, because once you fire up Terminal, virtually all the training wheels come off. You have pretty much all the access and control you ever wanted. One little typo on a command can have some pretty serious side effects. Most of the time we learn the hard way. Once upon a time, since some moron compiled a program with extremely strict lib linking, and used an obscure name for the lib, I needed to create a symlink pointing to the actual lib that the program needed so that ld could find it and the program didn't crash at startup. Reversed the order by mistake, and in doing so not only wiped out the lib I was trying to make a symlink to, but created a dangling symlink. From that day forward, if I ever had doubt about the order, I'd just flip to another VT and consult the ln man page.

So be careful what you ask for, because you may not like it when you get it.

Note: This post was edited by a forum moderator to edit out offensive personal attacks on 12/09/2011 at 10:01 AM PT

It is always so much fun seeing people sit behind the wall of the internet and be rude, and completely unhelpful in a thread that is trying to find some solutions to problems. There is no point in insulting people, when you know nothing about them, and your post is completely unhelpful.

Basically I am hate the dumbing down of Lion and was hoping to find some solution to fix a problem, and all you seem to care about is insulting me, when you have no idea what my level of skill is.

I agree. There's no need for anyone to be rude or arrogant.

I'm also annoyed at the new fascist changes in Lion OS. Until now, every version of OS X has allowed me easy access to my preferences folder. I've installed hundreds of utilities in my Utilities folders (note that it's MY Utilities folder on MY computer). I'm also annoyed that the root of the hard drive also is denied easy access in Lion for the first time.

If Apple wants to make such sweeping changes, they should at least offer some kind of option to undo the changes and allow an experienced user to operate in the manner to which he has become accustomed. I'd love to hear someone explain why a user must now be protected from modifying the Utilities folder. What's in it that all of a sudden needs protecting.

This is not an unreasonable opinion or desire and forum members should be respectful of this.

documents in the documents folder,
Applications in the Applications folder,
Music in the Music folder,
etc., you get the idea.

I put my, wait for it......

Utilities in the Utilities folder.

Personally, I think that is the logical place to put them.

P

Number one rule of the Mac operating system: The user is in control.

I personally spent an hour trying to authorize a program, only to discover that apple locked the preferences folder in the Library folder and thus wouldn't allow the program to change it's own preferences file!.... intensely stupid. Why?

1.Because one can assume that intel programs will be transferred from the Leo platform to the Lion platform. To change the permissions scheme between the two is stupid mistake on Apple's part, and needs to be corrected.

2. Where I choose to put my applications is my business. There's no good reason that they should not be able to be moved. All the previous operating systems didn't have a problem with this, why should it be an issue now? Because some idiot at apple decided that the user shouldn't move the programs.

Most importantly, you never answered the original answer, because you don't know it.

So here's the answer. Changing the permissions doesn't work. Even if you change the permissions for the entire folder and the contents of the folder, if you try to move something, you still have to enter the password.

The workaround I found is to hold the command key and then you can drag an app from the applications folder.

That's the answer people were looking for, not yours.

So, apparently Repairing Permissions will now revert the Utllities folder for the Admin setting as well.

I guess Apple no longer wants you to place your own apps in the Utilities folder so it may be best to create another folder for those items.

Why would one need to modify the Utilities folder if it contains mostly applications? How often a user will modify an application, and how? If I want to put, other utilities, say, Onyx, in the Utilities folder, the only thing I will need to do is authenticate, a.k.a. type my admin password. You have to type it every time when an update is being installed anyway. So, what is the problem? Would be interesting to learn... BTW, maybe a stupid question: if one logs in as root, does one still need to authenticate if one wants to modify the Utilities folder?

Why? Dragging a file or folder from a common folder like utilities or applications shouldn't be a pain in the ass. As time goes on, the mac os looks more and more like windows... Dragging a file should ALWAYS be the same. With lion, if I drag a file from one of my folders to the desktop, it moves the file. But if I drag file from the app folder, it creates an alias, just like windows. It's inconsistent behavior on the part of the finder, confusing, and stupid. Dragging a file should have only one result: moving the to where the USER wants it to go, not what the programmer thinks the user should be doing with it. Dragging a file on the desktop is meant to emulate moving a piece of paper on a real desktop. When you move a piece of paper on a desktop, do you get a copy of it that points to the original location of the piece of paper? I don't think so.

Basically since os9 apple has been dumbing down the OS, in other words, the approach use to be: make it easy for the user, even if it means it's more work for the programmer. Locking the apps and utilities folders or making them read only makes it easier for the programmer, but a pain in the ass for the user.

Why would a user want to move apps? Because perhaps when installing programs onto a drive with a clean install, a user needs to move things around while testing, or perhaps a program that worked in Leopard doesn't work in Lion, and it needs to be moved, or perhaps the user like moving things around just for the fun of it.... it really doesn't matter. I understand in Windows moving an apps location can be a problem, but we're using a mac, not windows. Moving an app's location has never been a problem and it never should be

More important to me is the idiocy of locking the preferences folder so that an app can't even write to it's own preference file.... <div>
For example: www.musiclab.com/support/faq.htm?id=12

This is an embarrassing for apple, no way around it.

</div>

my Preference folder, in Lion, is not locked.

I did make it visible after the Lion install, but it was never locked.

I have had no applications with difficulties reading or writing their pref files.

Ever think that there may be a problem with the MusicLab preference file causing this problem?
Drag it out onto the desktop and relaunch the Musiclab app and see what happens.

P

No, the entire preference folder was locked on its own. But will try what you said....