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Dr. Mac's OS X Tip-of-the-Day
Dr. Mac's prescription for making Classic run better, faster, and more reliably.
By BOB LEVITUS
Most OS X users believe you'll have fewer problems if you reduce the
number of extensions and control panels you load from your Classic
System Folder. I agree wholeheartedly. When I tried running my usual OS
9 extensions and control panels, Classic was quite flakey and quit
unexpectedly much more often than I expected. But when I turned off most
of my Extensions and Control Panels (because they're not needed if
you're in Classic), Classic became almost stable.
Note: This tip is adapted from Chapter 6 of my soon-to-be-released book,
Dr. Mac: The OS X Files, or, "How to Become a Mac OS X Power User," to
be published by Coriolis next month.
Now bear in mind that I don't use Classic much anymore, and I only have
a couple of programs--most notably Adobe Photoshop and Adobe
GoLive--that I still run in Classic. But over the year I've been using
it, mostly through trial and error, I've determined which Extensions and
Control Panels I could safely disable when running Classic. And it was a
lot of them:
Control Panels (disabled): Apple Menu Options, AppleTalk, Control Strip,
Date & Time, Energy Saver, File Exchange, File Sharing, Keyboard,
Launcher, Location Manager, Memory, Monitors, Mouse, Multiple Users,
Numbers, QuickTime Settings, Software Update, TCP/IP, Text, and USB
Printer Sharing.
Extensions (disabled): Apple Audio Extension, Apple CD/DVD Driver, Apple
Photo Access, Apple QD3D HW Driver, Apple QD3D HW Plug-In, AppleShare,
Application Switcher, ATI 3D Accelerator, ATI Driver Update, ATI
Graphics Accelerator, ATI MPP Manager, ATI Radeon 3D Accelerator, ATI
Rage 128 3D Accelerator, ATI Resource Manager, ATI Video Accelerator,
Audio CD Access, Authoring Support, Control Strip Extension, Disc Burner
Extension, FBC Indexing Scheduler, File Sharing Extension, File Sharing
Library, Find, Find By Content, FireWire Authoring Support, FireWire
Enabler, FontSync Extension, Foreign File Access, Internal V.90 Modem,
Iomega Driver, ISO 9660 File Access, Location Manager Extension,
Multi-User Startup, OpenGLEngine, OpenGLLibrary, OpenGLMemory,
OpenGLRenderer, OpenGLRendererATI, OpenGLUtility, QD3DCustomElements,
QuickDraw 3D, QuickDraw 3D IR, QuickDraw 3D RAVE, QuickDraw 3D Viewer,
QuickTime FireWire DV Enabler, QuickTime FireWire DV Support, SDAP
Authoring Support, ShareWay IP Personal Bgnd, Software Update Engine,
Software Update Scheduler, Sound Manager, System Monitor Plugins, Time
Synchronizer, UDF Volume Access, USB Authoring Support, USB Device
Extension, USB Printer Sharing Extension, USB Software Locator, and
USBAppleMonitorModule.
And, if Adobe GoLive didn't require them, I could also disable
QuickTime, QuickTime MPEG Extension, QuickTime Musical Instruments,
QuickTime PowerPlug, and QuickTime VR. Sigh.
If you're using a lot of Classic programs, you may have to keep some of
the items listed above enabled. That said, Classic works great for me
without them--it starts up faster, rarely crashes, and the programs I
use run fine without them.
The bottom line is that the fewer extensions and control panels you
enable, the better and faster Classic will run. So go trim yours now if
you haven't already--I'll wait.
To discuss this tip (or anything you like) in Dr. Mac's OSXFAQ Forum,
click here:
http://forums.osxfaq.com/viewtopic.php?topic=363&forum=100
Bob LeVitus is a leading authority on Mac OS and the author of 37 books,
including Mac OS X For Dummies and The Little iTunes Book.
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