My Finder went bonkers

[alangyssler]

I just went through the painfully long and ardous process of reinstalling the software on both of the computers, which took about two days. It seems that I just can't seem to get it right. My laptop runs ok... still get a lot of beachballs, and slow responses (even with maxed out ram). My desktop is messed up a bit. When I right click on anything, and get the typical menu, I go to "Open With" and the listings for the programs are all doubled, meaning it'll read like this (if I right click on an mp3 file, or the like):

iTunes
iTunes
MPlayer
MPlayer
QuickTime
QuickTime

and so on. Why did this happen? Can it be fixed without redoing the whole drive again? I made a disk image, and can restore from that before scrubbing the drive, but I wanted to see if there was an easier means of correcting the problem.

Please excuse the newbie for posting a stupid question. If this isn't in the right place, or been answered before, I apologize. I looked online to try to find similar posts, and didn't find any.

Thanks for any help in advance!

 

[vouder17]

Ok i also have that but the reason for is that i have my Back-up HD(external) and my normal HD. The finder detects both applications on both HD's. So it shows up as double. this is atleast what happens with me. To me what it seems like the problem for you is that u have double apps...somewhere.

DjVoTeZ

 

[dr0wnoutthen0is]

Try this hint:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031215144430486

 

[alangyssler]

That makes sense... however, my Backup HD doesn't have any applications installed on it. Just the installer files (dmg, img, zip, and sit files). I did notice, however, that when connecting my external HD (200 gig with 10.3.9 installed on it), I'm getting triplicate listings for some applications (namely one's installed on that hd) and they're older versions, which makes sense.

I guess I need to dive deep into the hard drive, and make sure that I don't have any duplicated applications folders somewhere. I didn't think I backed that up... gotta check.

Thanks for your quick response!

 

[alangyssler]

Sweet! The link to the terminal code worked perfectly! It's been backed up on my second hd drive in the application folder... can't lose that one!

Thanks so much for your help, everyone! I posted earlier today, and within hours, a solution was found! Awesome!

Now if only I could figure out how to get my QuickSilver to stay asleep... anyone?!?

 

[alangyssler]

I'm getting really tired of Tiger, lately.

Well, now everytime I start up, I get the same thing happening.... wtf? I can keep reapplying the terminal fix, but do I have any other options? I just reinstalled (for about the fifth time in the last three months) no more than three weeks ago. Why can't Tiger work?!?

Please help.

 

[CubaTBird]

stop reinstalling and ERASE the mutha... lol... boot up from your tiger install dvd... choose disk utility and have it zero the drive... then install tiger

 

[alangyssler]

Thanks for the suggestion. I've done this in between each install. I've even done the 7 pass erasure from the install DVD a couple times (ran all night, I might add).

I've even tried restoring from what I thought was a Disc Image created in Disk Utility after I had all my necessary apps installed, updated, and registered.

In short, I'm growing very sick of Tiger. I think I'm just going to downgrade to 10.3.9 before school starts up in a week, so I can have my (reliable) computers back.

This isn't the only problems I'm having. I just posted a very long winded diatribe about Tiger (see "I can't handle Tiger anymore" for details.)

Thanks again. Any more suggestions? I've done the open firmware reset-all command, and that works, but again, until I reboot.

 

[Hemingray]

Try this hint:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031215144430486

Thanks for the link! Worked great for me. (Running 10.4.2)

I waged an all-out war on my "Open With" menu when it started not only listing ALL of the useless Photoshop .exe droplets, but listing them TWICE! So I located the buggers (they were buried in the Samples folder) and tossed 'em, and now all the duplicates are gone thanks to your link. I have regained control of my Open With menu!

(Which is really sad 'cause it never should have gotten out of control in the first place.. Apple really needs to let us customize that menu! I encourage everyone who agrees to send feedback to Apple and let 'em know.)