06-24-2010, 11:51 PM

Ok. I'm a PC guy now using a Mac. How come when I download some programs, I get an icon on the desktop and in finder the icon appears as a device that I can eject?

And how do you know if when you run the program if you are running it off of this icon-thing (a drive image? I suppose) or actually off the hard drive? Is there a way to see if the program has been "installed" ?

Thank you!

06-24-2010, 11:59 PM

Hi,
Usually when you download an application it is either in a Disk Image or a .zip file. This is done to compress the Application to a smaller size for downloading.
Then when the DMG is opened, a Disk Image will mount/show. From there you will have to open the installer and follow the instructions, or if it's just an Application, drag it to the Applications folder from which you can open the Application. Then you can eject the Disk Image and delete the DMG if you want, or you can archive it for later use.

http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2008...obs-guide.html

http://mymacbuzz.com/2007/06/03/inst...re-on-mac-os-x
Installing Applications in Mac OS X - Mac Guides

06-25-2010, 12:03 AM

Thank you. The explaination and links are helpful.

One thing...when you open the image file and the windows pops up where you see the icon of the image with an arrow pointing to the application folder, are you supposed to drag that same icon to the application folder it's pointing to, or are you supposed to drag the icon to the application folder on the dock.

Thanks.

06-25-2010, 12:08 AM

When you double click (or control click which is right click) on the disk image, it will either open a finder window, instructing you to drag the application into the applications folder, or you will have an installer appear on the screen, which you will need to double click on the start the installation.
Once you have done either of these steps for the given disk images, then you can drag the disk images and installers to the trash.
If you open (double click or right click) a disk image, and then open the application without any of the above steps, you are running the application off the desktop which is part of your hard drive, but it is not saved into your user applications, and therefore if you delete the disk image once you have closed the application, then you will be deleting the application.
Note: If you were to try to send the disk image to the trash and try to empty the trash in the last step mentioned above while you were still using the application, you would get an error message saying that the task could not be completed because it is still in use.
I recommend that you go to Apple - Mac and run through the tutorials

06-25-2010, 12:09 AM

It's one and the same Applications folder, the one with the arrow pointing at it is an Alias or in PC lingo a Shortcut.

06-25-2010, 12:09 AM

McYukin beat me to it while I was typing