I like having my desktop clear, but everytime I use instant messenger the little disk appears. I wondered if there is a way that I can use it without having the disk appear on my desktop.
I like having my desktop clear, but everytime I use instant messenger the little disk appears. I wondered if there is a way that I can use it without having the disk appear on my desktop.
Please forgive me I'm a newbie to the macworld.
here is what likely happened:
many installers these days come in one of two flavors: the full installer package, where it shuts down things if necessary, tells you what items will be sent where, cleans up after itself, etc. the other is where companies will simply issue a disk image with the application and files on it, and you can copy its contents to your own hard drive and then discard or archive the disk image elsewhere.
you and msn messanger fall nto that second category. but, from the sound of it, rather than copying the application to your hard drive somewhere (usually the applications folder), you double-clicked the application that was still in the disk image. and perhaps the msn messanger icon is int he dock now, right? or a shortcut somewhere that you access? well, every time you access that shortcut, it goes and finds that disk image and mounts it to load the application. OR, it might need an extra file on that disk image that msn hasn't let go of yet.
so, next time you launch it, and the disk image appears, open the disk image and copy the msn messenger application from that disk image to anywhere on your disk (though i would recommend the applications folder, as many apps EXPECT that to be the case). then quit msn messenger. now you need to find the disk image that is mounting (not the disk on your desktop... the file that it is attached to. should end in a .dmg extension) and toss it in the trash and empty the trash to get rid of it.
now you should be able to launch msn messenger without having the disk image load each time.
unfortunately, the whole "disk image" install saves a lot of effort in one respect, but if you don't understand what's going on, it can cause all sorts of other problems.. like this.
Comments
Originally posted by Muchisgiven
I like having my desktop clear, but everytime I use instant messenger the little disk appears. I wondered if there is a way that I can use it without having the disk appear on my desktop.
Please forgive me I'm a newbie to the macworld.
here is what likely happened:
many installers these days come in one of two flavors: the full installer package, where it shuts down things if necessary, tells you what items will be sent where, cleans up after itself, etc. the other is where companies will simply issue a disk image with the application and files on it, and you can copy its contents to your own hard drive and then discard or archive the disk image elsewhere.
you and msn messanger fall nto that second category. but, from the sound of it, rather than copying the application to your hard drive somewhere (usually the applications folder), you double-clicked the application that was still in the disk image. and perhaps the msn messanger icon is int he dock now, right? or a shortcut somewhere that you access? well, every time you access that shortcut, it goes and finds that disk image and mounts it to load the application. OR, it might need an extra file on that disk image that msn hasn't let go of yet.
so, next time you launch it, and the disk image appears, open the disk image and copy the msn messenger application from that disk image to anywhere on your disk (though i would recommend the applications folder, as many apps EXPECT that to be the case). then quit msn messenger. now you need to find the disk image that is mounting (not the disk on your desktop... the file that it is attached to. should end in a .dmg extension) and toss it in the trash and empty the trash to get rid of it.
now you should be able to launch msn messenger without having the disk image load each time.
unfortunately, the whole "disk image" install saves a lot of effort in one respect, but if you don't understand what's going on, it can cause all sorts of other problems.. like this.
hope that helps.