Chapter B. Trouble shooting

A.8. Uninstalling Mac OS X 10.4

There isn't any easy way to remove Mac OS X if you decide that you don't like it.

The chief problem is that thousands of its pieces are invisible. Even if you start up the Mac from another disk and then drag all the visible Mac OS X folders to the Trash, you'll leave behind many megabytes of software crumbs that you can't see.

Here and there, in books and on Web sites, you'll find conflicting lists of these invisible files, along with elaborate steps for making them visible and then throwing them away. The truth is, however, that you'll save time by backing up the data that's worth preserving ”your Home folder, Applications folder, Library folder, and whatever folders you use in Mac OS 9 ”and then erasing the hard drive or partition and reinstalling the operating system that you prefer.