Downloading and Installing and...

[Star Destroyer]

I just recieved my first Mac computer, and i am having a really annoying BASIC problem. I know its lack of knowledge, but i cant find anything to help me so i will ask here.

When you Download a program, (so far i have only tried firefox and MSN) it Dl's and goes directly to the desktop, i then install it and it puts that 'thing' under the MAC HDD.. It looks like a little removable drive. In windows i would then take this and put it into another file and titled "MSN" or something, and it would be finished.
With the Mac it wont move off the desktop, it only creates shotcuts in those 'new' files. I dont Know what 'eject' means it seems its just another way of saying 'delete'...

When i download it to that new location already in the specifically created file, it still puts that thing on the the desktop... and wont move..

grrrr... nothing on the macbook tells me how to use OSX and basic functions like this.. and i dont want anything on my desktop except the HDD and Dock..

So what do i have to do? how to arrange files? and programs that i have downloaded?

 

[Dane D.]

I am assuming you were a PC user. That is the install file. Think of it as a virtual HD icon. Double-click the icon and it should open and present you with the contents. Drag the application file to your Applications folder and it installs automatically. When done just drag the virtual HD icon to the trash or command-e. That is all there is to installing apps. If you want to delete the application, just open your Applications folder, find app and drag to trash or command-delete it. Simple, like all Mac stuff. Keep a cool head and you will be fine. It will take a little time to un-learn the Windows way of doing things. But once you do 'get' it, you'll wonder why you stuck with Windows. By the way what did you buy?

 

[WildCowboy]

Have a look at this article...it covers several ways of installing apps on Macs. It's really quite simple once you know the drill, but it can be confusing for those coming from Windows.

 

[Star Destroyer]

I just recieved my CTO 1.83gHz macbook 1Gb Ram in the post the other day. I have been trying to get Firefox and MSN to start, but i kept getting that image on my Desktop. I didnt want it there and when i tried to move it, it would just create a shortcut. Not ideal for me, because it was still on the Desktop. and i kept deleting the files, i was afraid that i would now have hundreds of fragmented files on my new HDD so i stopped using it for fear of ruining it already.

Ok, so once its DL'd and installed and that thing is on the Dsktop, i just drag and drop it in the applications folder? then eject it from my dsktop, and it will continue to run?

what if i want that to be in a different file, not in the applications? how do i get it there without a shortcut?

 

[WildCowboy]

Okay...when you download Firefox, you get a DMG file. Clicking on that expands the file to a mountable disk as you mentioned. That's why you can eject it instead of deleting it (though it is a virtual eject rather than a physical one). Inside that mountable disk is the application. While you can open the application and run it from there, that's not what you want to do. You are supposed to drag it to your Applications folder on your hard drive, where it will be installed. The vast majority of applications are perfectly happy to be stored elsewhere (inside a subfolder of Applications or somewhere else), though you may run across an occasional one that won't be happy.

Once you've added the application to your hard drive, you can eject the disk and delete the compressed disk image file you initially downloaded. Then you can do whatever you want with the application on your hard drive...move it somewhere else, open it, add it to your Dock, create an alias on your Desktop, etc.

 

[Star Destroyer]

I am at school at the moment, but when i get a chance to test this out i will, and i will report back when its working..

PS- I really need MSN for Mac, but so far i have only found ****** stuff like aMSN or like MSN 5.1.1 haahah they look and feel terrible, is there anything else out their to use?

 

[WildCowboy]

PS- I really need MSN for Mac, but so far i have only found ****** stuff like aMSN or like MSN 5.1.1 haahah they look and feel terrible, is there anything else out their to use?

Have a look at Adium...

 

[Star Destroyer]

hahaah weeell, yay, NOT really liking the no display pics..

I have some cute girls on my list.. display pics a must! lol

 

[Star Destroyer]

OK i am home now, tried it... NOT WORKING ahaha

I get my Firefox DL'd and that thing comes on the Dsktop, then i put into apps, and then eject it and go to run it, and it runs, but this other screen appears, with a firefox icon and then some other icon in the middle and an arrow and the apps folder..

it seems to be telling me to put it into apps, and it already is.... sooo i dont know what else it wants from me!

 

[WildCowboy]

If I read your post correctly, it sounds like you're putting the mountable disk in your apps folder.

Step 1: Download disk image.

Step 2: Mount disk on Desktop by double clicking on the disk image icon.

Step 3: Open mountable disk. As you described, you'll see a Firefox icon with some graphics trying to illustrate the act of putting it into your Applications folder. Do this with the Firefox icon you see there.

Step 4: Eject mountable disk and disk image. Open Firefox from your Applications folder.

 

[Star Destroyer]

wow that took way to many posts, i'm a moron..

Well it seems to be working, i just needed to delete the dsk image, and the desktop image to stop them from reappearing like that..

so far Firefox seems to be installed correctly, now..

Any way of de-fraging this? so i dont have a zillion little bits of the firefox's i failed at installing floating around?

or can i assume that they were deleted when i deleted the icons from my apps file?

 

[WildCowboy]

No need to defrag...OS X defrags itself on the fly pretty well...

 

[Eraserhead]

For firefox you should have an icon that looks like

in your applications folder. Not like

, to load the disk image you will need to accept a licence agreement which looks like


as MSN goes the best program is aMsn, but clearly it isn't up to the standards of window's MSN messenger, you could try downloading the latest nightly build, which is a better and more up to date version of aMSN, instructions on how to install that are here