The problem: Some PowerPC applications (such as Word) sometimes fail to launch on Intel Macs.
Level 1 solution: There is a root process called translated which seems to be launched with PowerPC programs. If this process is killed, then the application can be launched with no troubles. Note that an administrator password is required. translated can be found by opening up the Activity Monitor. Select the process and click on Quit Process. This was covered in this recent hint.
This solution works, but it is a pain. Read on for some alternative solutions...
Level 2 solution: Automate the termination of the translated process. I wrote an AppleScript program which kills translated and launches Word. The first complication -- translated is not AppleScriptable, so you can't just tell it to quit. The following script uses some Unix shenanigans to find the process id of translated, and then a quit signal is sent to it, before Word is launched.
set pid to do shell script ¬
"ps -auxw -U root | grep -i translated | awk '{print $2}'"
if pid ≠"" then
do shell script "kill -TERM " & pid ¬
with administrator privileges and password
end if
tell application "Microsoft Word" to launch
This solution is better, but what if you want to launch Word with a Word document?on run
killtranslated()
tell application "Microsoft Word" to launch
end run
on open wordfiles
killtranslated()
repeat with afile in wordfiles
try
tell application "Microsoft Word" to open afile
end try
end repeat
end open
on killtranslated()
set pid to do shell script ¬
"ps -auxw -U root | grep -i translated | awk '{print $2}'"
if pid ≠"" then
do shell script "kill -TERM " & pid ¬
with administrator privileges and password
end if
end killtranslated
Save the AppleScript as an droplet (I call it WordLauncher), and if you drop a Word document onto the droplet, it will launch Word and open your document with no problems. The obvious next step is to just allow us to double click Word documents.
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2006080308222881