TinkerTool System 2.1

TinkerTool System 2.1 is an easy-to-use and powerful collection of system utility features assisting you in performing advanced administration tasks on Apple Macintosh computers. The application makes use of a self-adapting user interface which automatically adjusts to the computer model and to the version of Mac OS X you are running. All options available in the current situation are accessible via "panes", very similar to the techniques you already know from the System Preferences application. All functions can be controlled by a single program which acts as general toolbox and First Aid assistant.

Major Features:

1. Verify when Mac OS X has run its internal maintenance scripts and start scripts manually if necessary.
2. Reset permissions of the operating system volume.
3. Repeat the software optimization procedure of the Apple Installer.
4. Clear the Directory Services cache.
5. Troubleshoot application-related caches by the new cache deactivation feature, avoiding the bad side effects of cache cleaning if possible.
6. Clear and rebuild the font caches of a single user account or the whole operating system.
7. Clear the font caches of Microsoft® Office applications.
8. Clear and rebuild the startup driver cache of Mac OS X.
9. Upgrade user accounts created under control of Mac OS X Tiger to avoid compatibility problems with the Leopard Finder (not necessary in Snow Leopard).
10. Unlock disk volumes which are shown with a lock icon.
11. Fix the problem of disk volumes disappearing in the Finder.
12. Fix the problem of input palettes disappearing from then keyboard menu control panel (not necessary in Snow Leopard).
13. Get information about production date and manufacturing site of your Mac.
14. Get detail information about the exact Intel processor type or G5 MPU card in your Mac.
15. Get information about components, expansion slots, jumpers and other details from the system management firmware built into your Mac (Intel-based systems only).
16. Create system inventory files or print-outs.
17. Get access to more than 80 log files and reports kept by Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server.
18. Create symbolic links and hard links as an alternative to aliases in the file system.
19. Protect or unprotect files or a whole hierarchy of folders.
20. Make files invisible or change their type and creator codes.
21. Analyze and remove quarantine data of files or bundles.
22. Let Mac OS X analyze the true contents of files, independent of type codes or file name extensions.
23. Enforce deletion of protected files or a hierarchy of folders.
24. Perform an enforced “empty Trash“ operation, selectable by disk.
25. Remove resource forks from files.
26. Remove Finder view preferences from folders (.DS_Store files).
27. Remove AppleDouble files (emulated forks or extended attributes on foreign file systems).
28. Remove log file archives.
29. Clean Mac resources from external drives before the disks are given to users of foreign operating systems.
30. Remove Post Mortem Core Dump files.
31. Remove language support packages safely from the operating system or from third-party software.
32. Let TinkerTool System assist you in removing applications which have been installed by drag-and-drop operation. All user accounts can be cleaned from nearly all application-related files.
33. Deinstall widgets, screen savers, preference panes, QuickTime plug-ins or Internet plug-ins
34. Remove code support for unneeded processor architectures from Universal applications or other software components (“thinning”).
35. Remove or restore items in the Services menu of Mac OS X (not necessary in Snow Leopard).
36. Display and change the true permission setting of file system objects, getting full control over Access Control Lists (ACLs).
37. Let TinkerTool System compute the effective permissions for a user accessing an object.
38. Get access to special permission settings of Mac OS X.
39. Control ACL support on disk volumes.
40. Set the energy saver options for hard drives, specifying the exact sleep timeout.
41. Control when Mac OS X should mount external drives.
42. Block disk volumes from automatic mounting and program execution.
43. Switch off Spotlight if necessary.
44. Control operations of the Spotlight metadata stores per volume.
45. Block selected disk volumes from all Spotlight operations.
46. Control system options for authentication with AFP file servers (AppleShare).
47. Set the MTU values (Maximum Transfer Unit) for all network interfaces.
48. Save MTU profiles individually into your network locations.
49. Get access to Mac OS X's experimental features for resolution-independent screen display. Enlarge screen output without reducing picture quality.
50. Activate Mac OS X's advanced preference pane for the Archive Utility.
51. Activate Mac OS X's advanced preference pane for handling disk image (DMGs). (Not available in Snow Leopard).
52. Remove custom preference panes from user accounts or the whole operating system.
53. Get access to the permission filter used to control the rights for files and folders created by user applications.
54. Specify server and port number of the Mac OS X Software Update Server.
55. Control the job history policy of the Mac OS X printing subsystem.
56. Switch off the Sudden Motion Sensor of portable Apple computers.
57. Control the energy saver wake-up settings for mobile computers with a display lid.
58. Manage the Safe Sleep feature of Intel-based mobile systems and remove the sleep file if desired.
59. Specify the different startup modes of Mac OS X (verbose and safe startup).
60. Specify 32 or 64 bit operation of the system kernel (Snow Leopard only).
61. Let the system use only one processor core or a limited amount of RAM for diagnostic purposes.
62. Control the NMI feature of the power switch.
63. Reconfigure kernel panic logging in case automatic recording of logs does not work for a serious panic problem.
64. Change the language setting for system startup and the login window.
65. Suppress the startup chime of Macintosh hardware used to confirm completion of the power on self test.
66. Set the display style of the login window.
67. Enable additional features and a text message in the login window
68. Specify the background picture for the login screen
69. Control the screen saver of the login screen (Snow Leopard only).
70. Verify the integrity of preference files effective for a user account. (This includes actual checks on the preferences structure, not only simple syntactical checks of “plist” files.
71. Find and remove unused preference files which have reached a certain age.
72. Find and remove preference files in network accounts which refer to decommissioned computers.
73. Let TinkerTool System verify the integrity of your login items.
74. Remove entries for recent items and recent servers from the Apple menu, the Finder and all applications, protecting your privacy.
75. Clean your user account from privacy-related data collected by the web browsers Safari 3/4, Firefox 3, OmniWeb 5, Camino, Opera 9, iCab 4, Shiira 2, and Flock 2.
76. Clean the Spotlight data for finding words on web pages visited with Safari.
77. Clean your user account from a selectable set of Flash® cookies (Local Shared Objects created by the Adobe® Flash® Player Internet Plug-In).
78. Clean your user account from site-specific Flash settings.
79. Access your personal Flash security settings.
80. Let Mac OS X rebuild the Launch Services Database for a selected user account (”rebuild Desktop”).
81. Edit the personal dictionaries of a user account created after learning unknown words via the Mac OS X spell-checker.
82. Repair the System Preferences application when it behaves erratically.
83. Repair the Mac OS X Help Viewer when it no longer works correctly.
84. Repair the translation of folder names in a user's home folder.
85. Get advanced information about a user account, viewing details not visible in System Preferences.
86. Learn about troubleshooting procedures for Mac OS X, getting context help with cross references to Apple's official support documents.
87. Integrate the control panes of TinkerTool directly into TinkerTool System, getting access to the full feature set in a single control window.

Enhancements:

• This version adds support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
• By request of many users, this version adds a printable PDF version of the reference manual. The manual is available as a separate, free download in English or German (approx. 150 pages each).
• Added new system information categories, displaying the 32 or 64 bit capabilities of the processor, and 64 bit operation mode of the Mac OS X kernel.
• Added new startup preference to enforce booting the kernel in 32 or 64 bit mode if possible.
• Added new system information field that displays the unique identification code (UUID) of the computer.
• Added a new preference to display memory sizes within TinkerTool System either in classic style, as Kibi units, or using standard units.
• Added a user option to let the application automatically reopen the last used pane when starting, similar to TinkerTool System 1.
• Added new feature to let the user define an optional blacklist of software bundles which should be ignored when removing language packages.
• Added new login setting to hide or show mobile user accounts.
• Added new login setting to enable or disable external user accounts.
• Added new login settings to enable the screen saver for the login screen (Snow Leopard only).
• Added operating system filter for the setting to define a customized Software Update Server.
• The user interface to reset permissions on the system volume has been redesigned. Status messages will now be shown in the user's preferred language.
• The feature to remove Macintosh-specific data from removable disks has been significantly accelerated. The typical case of cleaning DOS-formatted memory sticks containing more than 100,000 files will now be handled much faster.
• The application now automatically corrects problems with the system's login preferences in case they have been damaged by a low-quality “multifunction utility”.
• Enhanced status messages for systems where the weekly maintenance script needed a long time to run.
• Enhanced error messages for cases where Apple's certificate revocation server is down.
• Corrected a problem where the security environment of the application could not auto-repair itself under very special circumstances.
• Corrected a problem where removing words from the user's spell checker dictionaries did not work as expected.
• Corrected a problem where clicking on a subsection header in the table of ACL permissions could cause the application to quit unexpectantly.
• Corrected typographical errors in the documentation and user interface.
• Many other small additions and enhancements.