What are these files---they are breeding!!!!

[jbrown]

I think this is a Panther thing - cause if I boot in Jaguar 10.2.8 these files appear with no icon ( blank sheet of paper icon ) - what are they ( I seem to be running in to them more often ), and are they anything to be concerned about. I inserted a cd that I thought had only Jpegs, but there were a load of these files, which I can't seem to open, even if I change the opening aoolication in ' Get Info '.

cheers 🙁 🙁

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I think this is a Panther thing - cause if I boot in Jaguar 10.2.8 these files appear with no icon ( blank sheet of paper icon ) - what are they ( I seem to be running in to them more often ), and are they anything to be concerned about. I inserted a cd that I thought had only Jpegs, but there were a load of these files, which I can't seem to open, even if I change the opening aoolication in ' Get Info '.

cheers 🙁 🙁

My first guess is that they are JPEG pictures that have lost their .jpg extension. Try copying them to your hard disk, adding .jpg to the end of their name, and opening them to see if they really are JPEGs.

 

[jbrown]

My first guess is that they are JPEG pictures that have lost their .jpg extension. Try copying them to your hard disk, adding .jpg to the end of their name, and opening them to see if they really are JPEGs.

It isn't only on the cd - these files are scattered throught my HD, a lot deep inside system folders / sub-folders, and they wouldn't all be Jpegs ( or other image formats ). But I will try what you suggest on my cd files .. will report back....

 

[wrldwzrd89]

It isn't only on the cd - these files are scattered throught my HD, a lot deep inside system folders / sub-folders, and they wouldn't all be Jpegs ( or other image formats ). But I will try what you suggest on my cd files .. will report back....

The files located inside system and hidden folders most likely ARE Unix executables, as Mac OS X tells you. You don't need to do anything with those (except run them in the Terminal if you have a use for the functions they perform).

 

[jbrown]

well, Wiz, I tried it out and it worked a treat -- BUT -- although this helps for the few files I recognize - I'm still concerned that this is affecting a lot of files on my system - is there away to find all the files on my system that have this icon??

 

[wrldwzrd89]

well, Wiz, I tried it out and it worked a treat -- BUT -- although this helps for the few files I recognize - I'm still concerned that this is affecting a lot of files on my system - is there away to find all the files on my system that have this icon??

What you need to do is search for extensionless files. I'm not sure how to accomplish this using Finder's search tools, but I think it's doable. These mystery files are all extensionless, right? Then a search for such files should turn them up.

 

[jbrown]

What you need to do is search for extensionless files. I'm not sure how to accomplish this using Finder's search tools, but I think it's doable. These mystery files are all extensionless, right? Then a search for such files should turn them up.

Your right, they seem to be extensionless - so I'll see if I can search with that criteria - my concern stemmed from seeing them on my cd like that - I have the nouse to fix, or enquire for the info to fix, these type of problems - but I WOULDN'T want to have this problem spread, or make my files unreadable to other people. thanks for the advice 🙂

 

[Sparky's]

This probably a misguided 2 cents but in the old days if you brought a file onto your system that you did not have the program for, the Finder wouldn't know what icon to display next to the file name. The blank paper icon is the MAC system generic icon for files it can't recognize. I have done the adding an extension thing also and when you re-open the folder the correct icon appears (If you guessed right).
For instance when we recently upgraded our MAC and I completely rebuilt the machine but left all the old versions of software off, such as PageMaker 4.0, and a few others. When I went back to see the files in our customer folders all those files had blank generic icons, even the ones with extensions.

OK more than 2 cents, maybe 6.

:>) Sparky

 

[superbovine]

i just can't help but think of how files breed.

 

[Sedulous]

Yep, that kind of icon (with a terminal appearance) is usually associated with UNIX stuff. They are part of the OS. Everyone has them. Panther just changed the icon (probably for better association with Xcode). The icons for PC "exe" files also have this same icon. They were probably already on the CD with your pictures when you made it on your PC.

 

[DVW86]

Panther has some known issues with icons. I too have had jpeg's on CDs show up with that icon. I also have had the icons in my application folder get all mixed up. Such as the MSN Messenger icon appearing on two or three different applications. A reboot usually straitens things out, but it does make you wonder.