10.6: Run old screen savers on Snow Leopard

Nov 05, '10 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: melby.ruarus

Snow Leopard only hintWith Snow Leopard the ScreenSaverEngine application is a 32/64-bit binary, and if your system supports it will run in 64-bit mode. This means that any screen savers without 64-bit code will not run, and this is primarily old unsupported screen savers.

To get screen savers with only 32-bit code in them to run ScreenSaverEngine must be forced to run in 32-bit mode only.

One way to accomplish this it to remove the 64-bit portion completely:

Removing the 64-bit portion of the ScreenSaverEngine has no apparent disadvantages; it runs fine by opening it from the Finder, having the screen saver activate on a timer, through a hot corner, etc.

One issue that will occur is that System Preferences will still run in 64-bit mode, and so will not allow you to select a screen saver that only includes 32-bit code. Handling this is much simpler: Opening System Preferences should give you a window titled 'System Preferences (32-bit).' Now you should be able to select the screen saver from the list.

[crarko adds: I haven't tested this one.]

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