I have an older G5 1.66 Ghz PowerPC on which I had to reinstall the system after erasing the drive. I now also have an Intel Core 2 Duo complete with all my applications.

I have PowerPC and Intel Time Machine backups on a single external drive.

When the PowerPC machine gets back from the shop and I want only a few of the applications on it, can I just drag them through Firewire with the PowerPC as the target? Does it make any difference that one machine is Intel?

If I need to use the Time Machine backup to get the applications, am I better off to do a complete restoration of the drive from an older backup, go through the system update to 10.5.8, and then trash the applications and data I don't need?

Thanks

ryck

> When the PowerPC machine gets back from the shop and I want only a few of the applications on it, can I just drag them through Firewire with the PowerPC as the target? Does it make any difference that one machine is Intel?

Yes, no, and maybe...

Yes, you *can* just drag your apps from one Mac to another in FireWire target disk mode.

No, it doesn't make any difference that one Mac is Intel and the other is PPC *unless* any of your apps are *Intel only*.

And maybe, because it depends on the apps you're running...

Many, perhaps most, apps are simply installed in /Apps and create their plists and other support files on-the-fly when they are launched, but some apps, Photoshop, Office, and Little Snitch come to mind, get their hooks deeper into your system and *cannot* be copied from one Mac to another by drag & drop unless you care to track down all of their components (possibly including invisible ones) and do the job piece by piece; they must either be reinstalled from their original discs, dmgs, or whatever or installed as part of a Time Machine restoration (Edit: or installation of a non-TM backup).

> If I need to use the Time Machine backup to get the applications, am I better off to do a complete restoration of the drive from an older backup, go through the system update to 10.5.8, and then trash the applications and data I don't need?

I'd trash any apps, data, etc. I didn't want before updating, but you might want to wait for confirmation on that. (If you need any advice about pre-update maintenance please post back.)

Under the circumstances and since it is "only a few" applications I would recommend reinstalling the apps from scratch. Artie's "yes, no, maybe" answer is spot on and reinstallation neatly eliminates the questionables.

Some apps install things in other places. /Users/Shared/ for example, or /Library/Sounds/ etc. iLife for example, installs imovie and idvd themes and garageband loops in /Library. The apps will still run on another machine (probably) but won't have all their stuff. Some apps require their extras to be where they should be. A few keep a copy inside their application and will reinstall them if they're missing. (appleworks and ms office are good examples, they install any fonts they need when launched)

Thanks artie, joemike and Virtual...I guess I'll go with installing from scratch, as I had already done with iWork and Office. There aren't that many more apps I'll want on that machine - Amadeus Pro and a few others.

There's a lazy side of me that was just hoping to avoid the updating process after installation. The upside of this is, of course, that I got to learn something new.

ryck