kookaburra

I would be grateful if you could offer a solution to downloaded programs that disappear if not used for a while.

For example a few weeks ago I downloaded Firefox and parked its icon in the dock. It was working perfectly until I went away for a week. When I returned and tried to open it nothing happened - no bounces either. When I tried to trace the program via Spotlight a pop-up with the following message appeared: 'The alias "Firefox" could not be opened because the original item could not be found'. Precisely the same thing happened with Google Earth some time earlier. Are you able to tell me where these programs disappear to, and whether I can get them back?

I have a PowerBook G4 running on OS X v.10.4.11

sinclair_tm

Okay, after you downloaded the programs, did you copy them to the hard drive in the Applications folder, or did you just drag it to the Dock? If you just dragged it to the Dock, the programs are not installed, you just made a shortcut to them, or as OS X calls them, aliases. The program is still in the disk image that you downloaded, unless you trashed those.
What you need to do is find the downloaded file. Unless you changed it, Safari downloads to the Desktop in 10.4 by default. If you told it to download elsewhere, goto that folder. Find a file that has part of the program's name in it's name with an icon like this:

Double click on it, and then there will be a new white icon on the desktop that looks like this:

Open that and you will see the program. Now you need to copy it to your hard drive by dragging the icon of the program to the Applications folder. Once it has copied, then drag the icon from the Applications folder to the dock. Now when you click on it, it will load from the hard drive and work after you have restated your Mac.

kookaburra

Thank you so much - you have undoubtedly pinpointed the problem and averted any repetition of it in the future!