Ahhhhh for the love of god someone please help me!!!?!!?!

Case of the missing System Preferences application

I already posted this problem before but im reli bewildered and i need to refresh the thread as i reli need some help..

my system preferences application is missing! Ive checked other websites and other forums and no-one i know of has got the same problem.

one day i wanted to access my system preferences to change the background of my desktop when the icon i was lookin for in the dock changed from the small grey box with the apple to a large question mark. I thought at first that there maybe be some sort of error with loading the icon onto the dock, but i tried accessing it at it just froze and stopped responding. So i decided to access the imacs library and tried to access the specific preference from there i.e the background of the desktop and when i found the file and clicked on it a message came up and said that it couldn't find a program to open it with. also i had another message come up while accesing a program which needed access to system preferences, the message said 'systempreferences.app is missing' and it brought up a window for me to browse for it myself.

i have literally no idea wat has gone wrong. i cant remember exactly wat i did before that cud of started the problem. And i definitely remember that i didnt delete the program purposefully by putting it into the trash. i dunno maybe i hav got a virus which automatically deletes the system pref app, who knows....

ive tried many of the things in the troubleshooting and nothing has worked to bring back the system preferences app (however its makin my mac run much faster!) ive repaired all the permissions in my disk utility and still no success....

please help me!!!!!! can someone please help me find my long lost system pref......

btw i do not have access to any mac OS x discs (lost them and none of my m8s own a mac B*****ds)

Mac specsbe warned 7 year old mac lol)
233mhz iMac G3 (Power Pc 750 i think)
im running the latest OS X Panther i think

once again i reli need some help in retreiving this application.....can anyone help meeeeee!!!!!!!!

ps i know ppl are sick of me talkin bout this same problem, but im hopin u guys can help me out.

cheers in advance :mac:

goto to applications>utilities and drag and drop it to your dock

EDIT: As Kabwon suggested check your applications folder first to make sure it is not there.

Can you go to System Profiler and tell us the exact version of Mac OS X you have?

Also from the command line type
If it is still on your system that should find it. Warning though it will take a while to run, that is the brute force method.

Assuming it does not exist anymore, with the exact version of the OS perhaps someone could package it up in a dmg file for you.

ok, I just extracted it using pacifist, pm me your email and Ill mail it.

Cheers Macman, it worked! I cant thank u enough! Now i can change that bloody background lol :mac:

cool:mac:

HELP-Lost my system preferences

Hi!

Can anyone PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE help me? I'm helping my mom with her powerbook G4, and I had to do a restore on it for her. Now, I cannot access her system preferences at all. I did an archive and restore, but the whole computer seems crazy now...some things work and some things don't. I don't know what I've done to it. All I know now is when I go to the apple to access system preferences, it does nothing. It doesn't start and then crash, it just acts like I've done nothing at all. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I've just signed up for this board today. This is a cool place.

Thanks to anyone out there for any help they can give me.

welcome to the site. its usually a good idea to create a new topic if you have a problem.
have you repaired permissions? you also need to delete the preferences for system preferences, they're in:
mac hd> users> your username> library> preferences>delete file: com.apple.systempreferences.plist

Thanks for the info. I will remember to start a new topic next time. I'm trying to repair permissions right now, then I'll do the other. Thanks. I'll let you know.