I put some crappy software on my computer. It came with an installer that supposedly added some "components." Is there a way to find out what the installer installed so that I can remove it all?
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Is there a way to know what an installer installed?
- Thread starter mobydick01
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If the installer used a standard Mac OS .pkg format, then you can use Pacifist to find out where the installer installed which software components. I use this software for Mac OS X (and updates) developer previews.
The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:
Especially if you do not know, where the app components are installed (OPs original question).
Yes, the manual method I posted will identify associated files, regardless of where they may be installed.
Ah, yes, Pacifist. An excellent piece of software made by a MacNN forum member, IIRC. Unfortunately, it's $20 (I'm cheap) and not yet Lion compatible (I'm running Lion).
Well I'm familiar with that method, however in this instance I believe it may be insufficient.
The software I downloaded was Ogg Drop. Why I decided to delete it should be obvious: It ain't gonna work in 10.7. (Although that fact wasn't obvious to me when I downloaded it). Anyway, the .dmg contains the app (to be copied to the Applications folder), and the Components Installer.pkg.
I installed that package before realizing the app was useless, so presumably it actually installed junk as opposed to just pretending to, right? If it did, I can't find it simply by searching for the app name according to the guide...
Well, you are getting different result than I...
When searching for "ogg" the only thing that I get (which is actually related to the .ogg extension) is the Quicktime component.
In the terminal,
lists all packaged installed.
To see all the crap that a package copied to your system,
This will probably output a load of junk that scrolls off the screen, so you can either pipe it to more,
and flip through the results, or output it to a text file and then open it in textedit or whatever,
I believe an alternative that yields the same results is to find the .bom files and then list their contents. e.g.,
Edit: Here's an article that might help. It's for SL though. Receipts in Lion are kept in /private/var/db/receipts/
http://www.macworld.com/article/47341/2005/10/viewprogdetails.html
Code:
pkgutil --pkgs --volume /lists all packaged installed.
To see all the crap that a package copied to your system,
Code:
pkgutil --files package (<-- full name of package here)This will probably output a load of junk that scrolls off the screen, so you can either pipe it to more,
Code:
pkgutil --files org.virtualbox.pkg.virtualbox | moreand flip through the results, or output it to a text file and then open it in textedit or whatever,
Code:
pkgutil --files org.virtualbox.pkg.virtualbox > ~/Desktop/vbox_stuff.txtI believe an alternative that yields the same results is to find the .bom files and then list their contents. e.g.,
Code:
robotjr:Library mike$ sudo find / -iname "*.bom" | grep -i virt (<-- something relevant)
/private/var/db/receipts/org.virtualbox.pkg.vboxkexts.bom
/private/var/db/receipts/org.virtualbox.pkg.vboxstartupitems.bom
/private/var/db/receipts/org.virtualbox.pkg.virtualbox.bom
/private/var/db/receipts/org.virtualbox.pkg.virtualboxcli.bom
robotjr:Library mike$ lsbom /private/var/db/receipts/org.virtualbox.pkg.virtualboxcli.bomEdit: Here's an article that might help. It's for SL though. Receipts in Lion are kept in /private/var/db/receipts/
http://www.macworld.com/article/47341/2005/10/viewprogdetails.html
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In most cases, app removal software like AppZapper doesn't do a thorough job of finding and removing files/folders related to deleted apps. For more information, read this.