MacOS – sandbox for testing application

You can check and re-assign ownership recursively over a directory tree with find, stat and chown.

#!/bin/bash

olduser=<oldusername> # replace this with your old username
newuser=<newusername> # replace this with your new username
dir=<dir> # replace this with the directory you want to run through

find $dir | while read filename
do
  owner=$(stat "$filename" | cut -d ' ' -f 5)
  if [ $owner == $olduser ]
  then
    chown $newuser $filename
  fi
done

If you select the application and choose File > Get Info, you'll be able to see that the "Kind" of the application is of the kind "Classic", mean it is designed to run on Mac OS 9 (or earlier).

From Mac OS 10.0 to 10.4 (Tiger), PowerPC Macs came with an emulator of Mac OS 9 for running these older applications. Since 10.5 (Leopard) and the switch to Intel processors, these applications have given the error "The Classic environment is no longer supported." when you attempt to run them.

If you really, really need to run this application, here are some alternatives:

• Emulate an older Mac, using software such as SheepShaver. This is not for the faint of heart, but there are instructions.
• Use an older Mac (such as an iBook G4 or PowerBook) which is still running 10.4 or earlier.
• Use an even older Mac running Mac OS 9.