Dump OS 9 and Classic

C

Calvados

Registered
Overcome by a sense of tidiness, I decided to trash OS 9 (264.2 MB). I was immediately challenged with a dialogue window advising: "cannot be completed because item 'System Folder' is required by the System."

I've been running Mac OS X on my G3 iBook from day one. I never used OS 9 or Classic ever.

Is there any reason I have to keep supporting these two freeloaders? If not, how can I get rid of them?
 
Yes, there is a good reason to keep classic and OS 9. I asked if it was okay to dump the same as well as clearing all the extra folders with all the languages that come with applications so I could free up some memory, etc. I was told it would not be a problem, so I did. Lo and behold, a few days later I ran into this little problem when I attempted a firmware update on my Mac: It required Classic/OS9 to run the firmware check and update(this usually only happens when you reinstall the operating system or upgrade to the next OS). There are a lot more technically oriented people here than myself so I apologize if the 'exact' specifics are wrong. If you do not need to ever reinstall the OS on your machine, you would be okay. I advise against it. There is a way to get rid of the 'system folder' items, chances are, when you do, you will end up needing it for some reason.

JQ
 
You probably couldn't delete it because it was actually in use by some applciation, or you had Classic environment loaded already.

BTW, CLassic does refer to OS 9. They are one and the same. If you don't run any Classic pre-OS X apps then you don't really need it. Of course, if your Mac was one of the older PowerPC models that requires a firmware upgrade installed through OS 9 (as mentioned by Qfxz), then you're going to need it. But seeing as you have an iBook that already runs OS X, this shouldn't be an issue.
 
Gentlemen:

By that I mean, you Mr. Ofxz, and you Mr. nixgeek — you have put a sufficient fear of god in me to overcome that errant sense of tidiness I suffered earlier. I was hoping for a crisp, self-assured opinion absolving me of any responsibility for the care and feeding of OS 9, but neither of you allowed me that luxury. I've decided alas, to leave well enough alone.

I thank you for your clinical opinions, you are both clearly reliable and true.

Calvados
 
Well, if your Mac was already running OS X, then youwouldn't need said firmware update. And if you don't have any Classic apps that you would need to run from within the Classic environment, then you should be able to delete the System Folder (the one for Mac OS 9, not the "System" folder that's for OS X) without any worries.

Thankfully, the system folders are appropriately labeled with either a "9" or a "X" so you shouldn't have any problems figuring out which one to delete.

I still have some Classic apps that I run on my iMac G5, so I leave the Classic system folder on there. Otherwise, I would delete it as well. Of course, I don't even think it takes that much space in comparison to the size of hard drives nowadays.
 
Calvados said:
Overcome by a sense of tidiness, I decided to trash OS 9 (264.2 MB). I was immediately challenged with a dialogue window advising: "cannot be completed because item 'System Folder' is required by the System."

I've been running Mac OS X on my G3 iBook from day one. I never used OS 9 or Classic ever.

Is there any reason I have to keep supporting these two freeloaders? If not, how can I get rid of them?
Click to expand...

The way I did it? Ha. You just have to outthink the OS, and at times like this, it isn't very hard: Rename the folder.

Okay, provisos: Assuming you are confident in what you are doing, and probably some permission changes are needed, (XRay is handy to have in your contextual menu for this.)
 
Calvados

Go to this page;

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117

Look to see if your iBook has an updated for it. If so, download and install it. You'll need to boot into OS 9 if you have to update. You may not need an update, or it may have already been installed.

Then you're done with the need for OS 9. You can safely remove OS 9 without having any problems.

You can use the following in Terminal to remove it all;

To remove Mac OS 9 and Mac OS 9 applications and files:
1. Log in to Mac OS X as an administrator who can use sudo to remove files. By default, all users who are administrators can use the sudo command to remove files. If you modify /etc/sudoers, you can choose which users can use sudo. For information about how to modify the /etc/sudoers file, enter man sudoers in a Terminal window.
2. Open Terminal.
3. Enter the following command to remove the Classic icon from System Preferences:
4. $ sudo srm –rf '/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Classic.prefPane'
5. Enter the following commands to remove Classic folders and files:
6. $ sudo srm –rf '/System/Library/Classic/'
7. $ sudo srm –rf '/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app'
8. $ sudo srm –rf \
9. '/System/Library/UserTemplate/English.lproj/Desktop/Desktop (Mac OS 9)'
10. Enter the following commands to remove Mac OS 9 folders and files:
11. $ sudo srm –rf '/System Folder'
12. $ sudo srm –rf '/Mac OS 9 Files/'
13. Enter the following command to remove Mac OS 9 applications:
14. sudo srm –rf '/Applications (Mac OS 9)'
Click to expand...
 
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