TinkerTool System Release 2
Staying ahead
Many competitors have tried to copy TinkerTool and TinkerTool System in the last 10 years. The programs became a model of a whole generation of numerous Mac system utilities. With its superior technologies, for example multi-version OS support, or full security integration, the TinkerTool programs have always been ahead, however. The second major release of TinkerTool System makes sure this technological advantage is being continued, introducing new, unique features for Mac administration:
- TinkerTool System 2 introduces file cache deactivation, a troubleshooting procedure which allows users to test the status of application-related caches, without the need to remove them, avoiding the bad side effects of using “cache cleaners" if possible.
- TinkerTool System 2 supports several “one-click repair” features, allowing administrators to cure typical Mac OS X nuisances automatically, by just pressing a button.
- TinkerTool System 2 allows you to monitor privacy-related data collected by the Adobe® Flash® Player. Clean your user account from Local Shared Objects (“Flash cookies”) and control the Flash security settings.
Security
TinkerTool
System 2 is a “real” Mac OS X application and does not make use of
unsafe scripting mechanisms. The application follows Apple's latest
security guidelines for Mac OS X. The graphical user interface is
strictly separated from the operational core which is capable of
performing privileged system operations. This core is monitored by Mac
OS X's security subsystem which is responsible for allowing or denying
each single operation and to ask the user for authentication if
necessary. TinkerTool System itself never asks for user passwords,
making sure that your credentials cannot be intercepted by malicious
user programs. Administrators of large system installations can
fine-tune the security policy of TinkerTool System, for example by
giving different classes of administrator groups different permissions
to perform certain operations. In order to do this, TinkerTool System
integrates seamlessly into the authorization database of Mac OS X.
Safety and Know-How
When resolving typical system problems,
TinkerTool System attempts to follow Apple's official support
guidelines, e.g. the Troubleshooting and Procedures documents (formerly
known as Apple Knowledge Base), as well as Apple Technical Notes and
Apple Technical Questions and Answers. This does not mean that
TinkerTool System will execute a certain troubleshooting procedure word
by word. For example, the program will not simulate the entry of
terminal commands if Apple lists them in step-by-step troubleshooting
instructions. However, TinkerTool System will execute direct internal
commands which will have the exact same effects. Users can press a
special help button in TinkerTool System to check whether Apple offers
official documents about certain system problems in their database. If
such documentation is available, the user can click one or more Internet
links to open up-to-the-minute information about the problem in
question.
Printed Manual
TinkerTool System Release 2 comes with a detailed reference manual in Apple Help Viewer format. If you prefer a printed version of the manual, the documentation is also available as a PDF document (approx. 200 pages). It can be downloaded separately.
Screenshots
Get a first impression of TinkerTool System 2 by looking at screenshots of a few selected features.
Features in Detail
TinkerTool System Release 2 contains all you need for Macintosh administration — and even more. The features marked with an asterisk (*) below are available without any restrictions even if TinkerTool System runs in demo mode.
- Verify when Mac OS X has run its internal maintenance scripts and start scripts manually if necessary.
- Reset permissions of the operating system volume. (*)
- Repeat the software optimization procedure of the Apple Installer.
- Clear the Directory Services cache.
- Enable or disable the system's maintenance job for the locate database.
- Let the system update the locate database immediately.
- Evaluate memory statistics to assess if the installed RAM size is appropriate for the computer's workload.
- Check if the Mac OS X Finder is affected by certain defects which could lead to problems when copying files.
- Inspect technical details of optical disk media, like manufacturer, recording type, session information, etc.
- Install an emergency utility which can help you even if Mac OS X is suffering from major damage (see below).
- Troubleshoot application-related caches by the unique cache deactivation feature, avoiding the bad side effects of cache cleaning if possible.
- Clear and rebuild the font caches of a single user account or the whole operating system.
- Clear the font caches of Microsoft® Office applications.
- Clear and rebuild the startup driver cache of Mac OS X.
- Unlock disk volumes which are shown with a lock icon.
- Fix the problem of disk volumes disappearing in the Finder.
- Fix problems with the extensions cache which can cause slow startup of Mac OS X.
- Trigger network automounts in cases where the Finder cannot do this.
- Get information about production date and manufacturing site of your Mac. (*)
- Get detail information about the exact Intel processor type in your Mac. (*)
- Get information about components, expansion slots, jumpers and other details from the system management firmware built into your Mac. (*)
- Create system inventory files or print-outs.
- Display the current status of the operating system's anti-malware protection system (*)
- Get access to more than 100 log files and reports kept by Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server. (*)
- Create symbolic links and hard links as an alternative to aliases in the file system.
- Protect or unprotect files or a whole hierarchy of folders.
- Make files invisible or change their type and creator codes.
- Analyze and remove quarantine data of files or bundles.
- Let Mac OS X analyze the true contents of files, independent of type codes or file name extensions. (*)
- Retrieve all Spotlight metadata the system has stored for a file. (*)
- Enforce deletion of protected files or a hierarchy of folders.
- Perform an enforced “empty Trash“ operation, selectable by disk.
- Remove Extended Attributes, including resource forks, from files.
- Make your personal Library folder visible or invisible by a single mouse click.
- Remove Finder view preferences from folders (.DS_Store files).
- Remove AppleDouble files (emulated forks or extended attributes on foreign file systems).
- Remove log file archives.
- Remove crash report files.
- Remove orphaned files and folders from users who no longer have an account.
- Remove broken aliases from a hierarchy of folders.
- Clean Mac resources from external drives before the disks are given to users of foreign operating systems.
- Remove Post Mortem Core Dump files.
- Remove language support packages safely from the operating system or from third-party software.
- Let TinkerTool System assist you in removing applications which have been installed by drag-and-drop operation. All user accounts can be cleaned from nearly all application-related files.
- Deinstall widgets, screen savers, preference panes, QuickTime plug-ins or Internet plug-ins
- Remove code support for unneeded processor architectures from Universal applications or other software components (“thinning”).
- Open documents “by creator code”, launching applications which are bound to them, hereby imitating the behavior of the classic Mac OS.
- Display and change the true permission setting of file system objects, getting full control over Access Control Lists (ACLs).
- Let TinkerTool System compute the effective permissions for a user accessing an object. (*)
- Get access to special permission settings of Mac OS X.
- Set the energy saver options for hard drives, specifying the exact sleep timeout.
- Control when Mac OS X should mount external drives.
- Block disk volumes from automatic mounting and program execution.
- Switch off Spotlight if necessary (only available for Snow Leopard).
- Control operations of the Spotlight metadata stores per volume.
- Block selected disk volumes from all Spotlight operations.
- Control system options for authentication with AFP file servers (AppleShare).
- Unlock outdated authentication methods to connect to old AFP servers in Lion or Mountain Lion.
- Enable the Privacy Extensions for IPv6 networking (not necessary in Lion or higher)
- Disable the Bonjour Sleep Proxy feature in Lion or Mountain Lion, independent of Wake On LAN features.
- Set the MTU values (Maximum Transfer Unit) for all network interfaces.
- Save MTU profiles individually into your network locations.
- Get access to Mac OS X's experimental features for resolution-independent screen display. Enlarge screen output without reducing picture quality (Snow Leopard only).
- Enable the screen resolutions for HiDPI mode in OS X (Lion or higher).
- Activate Mac OS X's advanced preference pane for the Archive Utility.
- Remove custom preference panes from user accounts or the whole operating system.
- Get access to the permission filter used to control the rights for files and folders created by user applications.
- Specify server and port number of the Mac OS X Software Update Server.
- Block access to the Mac App Store in Mountain Lion without impeding OS X software updates.
- Control the local snapshots feature of Time Machine in Mountain Lion.
- Control the job history policy of the Mac OS X printing subsystem.
- Enable or disable the web interface of the printing subsystem.
- Switch off the Sudden Motion Sensor of portable Apple computers.
- Control the energy saver wake-up settings for mobile computers with a display lid.
- Manage the Safe Sleep and standby features of Intel-based mobile systems and remove the sleep file if desired.
- Specify the different startup modes of Mac OS X (verbose and safe startup).
- Specify 32 or 64 bit operation of the system kernel (not necessary with Mountain Lion).
- Let the power control for displays in Mountain Lion behave similar to Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
- Disable the Dark Wake feature of Mountain Lion.
- Control whether processor cores should remain powered up even if they are idle.
- Let the system use only one processor core or a limited amount of RAM for diagnostic purposes.
- Control the NMI feature of the power switch.
- Reconfigure kernel panic logging in case automatic recording of logs does not work for a serious panic problem.
- Change the language setting for system startup and the login screen. (*)
- Suppress the startup chime of Macintosh hardware used to confirm completion of the power on self test (Snow Leopard only).
- Set the display style of the login screen.
- Enable additional features and a text message in the login screen.
- Specify the background picture for the login screen (Snow Leopard only).
- Control the screen saver of the login screen.
- Launch multi-lingual applications in a language different from your usual preferred one.
- Verify the integrity of preference files effective for a user account. (This includes actual checks on the preferences structure, not only simple syntactical checks of “plist” files.
- Find and remove unused preference files which have reached a certain age.
- Find and remove preference files in network accounts which refer to decommissioned computers.
- Let TinkerTool System verify the integrity of your login items.
- Remove entries for recent items and recent servers from the Apple menu, the Finder and all applications, protecting your privacy.
- Clean your user account from privacy-related data collected by the web browsers Safari 3/4/5/6/7/8/9, Firefox for Organizations 10/17/24, OmniWeb 5, Camino 2.1, Opera 11/12, iCab 4/5, and the browser of DEVONagent 2 and 3.
- Clean the Spotlight data for finding words on web pages visited with Safari.
- Clean all SQL databases or selected HTML 5 local storage databases created by Safari.
- Clean your user account from a selectable set of Flash® cookies (Local Shared Objects created by the Adobe® Flash® Player Internet Plug-In).
- Clean your user account from site-specific Flash settings.
- Access your personal Flash security settings.
- Review and delete individual cookies in the shared cookie store of your user account (used by Safari and other Mac OS X components).
- Let Mac OS X rebuild the Launch Services Database for a selected user account (”rebuild Desktop”).
- Edit the personal dictionaries of a user account created after learning unknown words via the Mac OS X spell-checker.
- Repair the System Preferences application when it behaves erratically.
- Repair the Mac OS X Help Viewer when it no longer works correctly.
- Repair the translation of folder names in a user's home folder.
- Get advanced information about a user account, viewing details not visible in System Preferences. (*)
- Learn about troubleshooting procedures for Mac OS X, getting context help with cross references to Apple's official support documents. (*)
- Integrate the control panes of TinkerTool directly into TinkerTool System, getting access to the full feature set in a single control window. (*)
Features
of the Included Standalone Utility
TinkerTool System 2 comes with an additional emergency tool which can help you to troubleshoot Mac OS X problems even if the graphical user interface is no longer starting, or the user account of the system administrator has been damaged. This standalone version of TinkerTool System 2 includes the following features:
- Verifying and repairing the startup disk before startup.
- Verifying and repairing the system's folder for the storage of temporary objects.
- Verifying and resetting permission settings of operating system files, independent of the graphical user interface. (Note: This feature is not supported at this time when using OS X Mavericks.)
- Performing an automatic quick check and repair procedure to ensure a sufficiently good state of the base operating system.
- Deactivating corrupted preference files for a user account.
- Deleting user-related Input Managers.
- Deactivating and reactivating cache contents of a user account.
- Deactivating and reactivating all preference settings of a user account.
- Deactivating corrupted system preference files.
- Deleting system-wide Input Managers.
- Deactivating and reactivating the contents of system-wide caches.
- Resetting network-managed preferences (MCX).
- Resetting the login screen
- Removing third-party startup objects.
- Cleaning the swap space.
- Disabling automatic login.
- Uninstalling the emergency tool, independent of the graphical user interface.