To do this, launch Activity Monitor and press Command-1 to bring up the main Activity Monitor window if it does not show by default.

While System Profiler will list all applications on your system, you can use Activity Monitor to see if any (including background tasks) are PowerPC as well. The list may take a few moments to populate, but when it is complete you can sort the list by Kind, which should be either Universal, Intel, PowerPC, or possibly 'Classic.' From here you can check to see if any PowerPC applications are ones you frequently use, and see if an updated version is available. Open the utility (located in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder) and select 'Applications' under the 'Software' section. System Profiler can be used to sort all applications by their architectures (click for larger view).Īpple's System Profiler utility is perhaps the best method of checking your installed applications' architectures. While the Finder information window is useful, you would have to check each application file separately, which might take a long time. For some universal binary applications, you may also see an option in this window to open the application using Rosetta. You should see the line 'Kind: Application' followed by the architecture in parentheses. Select the application and press Command-I and look in the 'General' section of the window. The first method to see an application's architecture is to get information on it in the Finder. There are several ways to do this in OS X: To avoid chancing that this will happen with any of your current programs, it will help to check whether any that you use or have installed are PowerPC-only applications.

If a program does require PowerPC and you install OS X without Rosetta, you will see the program's icon appear with a white 'no entry' slash through it, and you will not be able to open the program. Over the years, people have accumulated applications, tools, and utilities that use either Intel or PowerPC, or both, and while numerous developers have updated their software to work natively on Intel Macs, with Rosetta being so transparent, people may be unsure whether their software requires PowerPC.Īnother factor that plays into this is even though Rosetta applications will run slower than their native counterparts, some Mac systems are fast enough to compensate for any noticeable speed difference. With speculation and rumor suggesting (possibly accurately) that OS X Lion will be issued without the 'Rosetta' dynamic translator that allows PowerPC code to run on Intel-based Macs, a number of people are undoubtedly concerned about their readiness to use a platform without any form of PowerPC support.

How to install rosetta on mac os x lion