Can System/mac OS Installers be modified?

[Chopsticks]

Im wondering if anyone knows how difficult it would be to modify system software installers to change what is installed and to add things

for example there are some system file modifications that people like to use and also essential things like the 2020 control panel for dealing with modern date times.
there are some patches allowing HFS+ support on mac os 7.5.5 and 7.6.1
there are patches to the boot resource need to use SE/30 machines with 32bit ROMs some system versions

and likely many other things that are aren't listed above

so was wondering first if its possible and secondly does anyone know what would be involved in modifying systems 7-8.1 to either adding this things or better yet adding a installer Option for things like this?

 

[Phipli]

Im wondering if anyone knows how difficult it would be to modify system software installers to change what is installed and to add things

for example there are some system file modifications that people like to use and also essential things like the 2020 control panel for dealing with modern date times.
there are some patches allowing HFS+ support on mac os 7.5.5 and 7.6.1
there are patches to the boot resource need to use SE/30 machines with 32bit ROMs some system versions

and likely many other things that are aren't listed above

so was wondering first if its possible and secondly does anyone know what would be involved in modifying systems 7-8.1 to either adding this things or better yet adding a installer Option for things like this?

You could make your own from scratch with

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/installer-vise-601

Or

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/installermaker

 

[Phipli]

there are some patches allowing HFS+ support on mac os 7.5.5 and 7.6.1

These are absolutely bodge experiments and not really a great thing to use other than for curiosity.

 

[cheesestraws]

You can, in theory, modify installers, but it looks sufficiently painful that I've never tried. You want the installer SDK, which includes ResEdit templates (IIRC) and a manual that makes sobering reading. Bonus content includes an awareness of why Apple later moved away from that installer framework, and why few other people used it.

 

[Phipli]

You can, in theory, modify installers, but it looks sufficiently painful that I've never tried. You want the installer SDK, which includes ResEdit templates (IIRC) and a manual that makes sobering reading. Bonus content includes an awareness of why Apple later moved away from that installer framework, and why few other people used it.

Yeah, Installer Maker and Installer VISE were actually fun to use. I forget which is the one I preferred, but I used to make my own installers with the shareware version as a kid, paint my own splash screens, cheeky instructions... And more useful than a SEA because it would put files in the right place!

But off topic.

 

[Chopsticks]

These are absolutely bodge experiments and not really a great thing to use other than for curiosity.

was just using that as am example, while ive tried those patches i havent actually spent any real time testing in depth or anything besides confirms they seem to work and i can access files..

You can, in theory, modify installers, but it looks sufficiently painful that I've never tried. You want the installer SDK, which includes ResEdit templates (IIRC) and a manual that makes sobering reading. Bonus content includes an awareness of why Apple later moved away from that installer framework, and why few other people used it.

id imagine it would be painful at best, deadly to the mind at worst.
so in theory though if one could decipher the manua, are the installer SDK and its res Edit templates avaliable somewhere or where they internal apple stuff? would this allow editing at installer files or would it still require some kind of source files for the installer to be built from?

 

[Phipli]

are the installer SDK and its res Edit templates avaliable somewhere or where they internal apple stuff?

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/apple-installer-sdk

 

[cheesestraws]

so in theory though if one could decipher the manua, are the installer SDK and its res Edit templates avaliable somewhere or where they internal apple stuff? would this allow editing at installer files or would it still require some kind of source files for the installer to be built from?

It's less deciphering and more that the system - at least to me - really feels like it's designed for software of the complexity of System 6 stuff, and by the time System 7 came along, it seems significantly underpowered.

 

[Chopsticks]

It's less deciphering and more that the system - at least to me - really feels like it's designed for software of the complexity of System 6 stuff, and by the time System 7 came along, it seems significantly underpowered.

i think i know what you mean, i mainly a hardware design guy so my software skills arent pretty limited but seeing the stuff you and Crutch get upto on here anyways gets me intersted and reading up on things and i think after system 6 things just got chaotic in mac development both hardware and software wise... it was a bit of a mess tacking on features after the numerous OS sucession failures apple had before OS X

 

[CC_333]

Yeah, Installer Maker and Installer VISE were actually fun to use. I forget which is the one I preferred, but I used to make my own installers with the shareware version as a kid, paint my own splash screens, cheeky instructions... And more useful than a SEA because it would put files in the right place!

Me too! InstallerMaker was actually one of the first things I downloaded _ever_, and it felt like a terrifying experience (this was back in 1999 or so). It sure was fun, though!

I still have some of these ancient artifacts locked away on a dead hard drive that I managed to keep for all these years. I tried replacing the controller board, because the original was fried, but unfortunately the heads won't seek (I suspect the voicecoil or whatever it uses got fried too). I don't think they crashed, fortunately, as the platter looks clean and unscathed, so there may still be a chance if someone could transfer the platter to a known-working mechanism. Somebody like DriveSavers could do it easily I'm sure, but I'm not gonna pay $2,500+ to recover a bunch of random scribbles and doodles of 10 year old me. It's important, but not that important.

If I could do it myself, I would, but replacing the controller board is pretty much the limit of my expertise.

But off topic.

Yup, but since when has that mattered? Haha...

c

 

[LaPorta]

These are absolutely bodge experiments and not really a great thing to use other than for curiosity.

I used my “patched” 7.6.1 for a while, and noticed after a while a lot of corruption type issues with files and resources, and I reverted.

 

[LaPorta]

Almost all of my digital packratry is on my modern RAID drive. It’s been copied from my Mac Plus, to my 6300, iMac, iMac DV, iMac G4, MacBook Pro, then to 2010 iMac, and now my Mac Mini Server. I know there’s a few things that have been lost, but the vast majority of everything I saved is still with me.

 

[Chopsticks]

I used my “patched” 7.6.1 for a while, and noticed after a while a lot of corruption type issues with files and resources, and I reverted.

probably not the best example for me to give for modifying the installers.
at the end of the day its more the question of can it be done and how hard it would be to do.
its much quicker to just copy a system folder thats being modified to say boot sys 7.5.5 on a mac SE/30 with 32bit clean roms then to reinstall using a modified installer that already contained the patched data.

btw good to know about the HFS+ patches having some issues, it was on my to look into more list but i hadnt gotten around to it yet.

 

[Phipli]

I used my “patched” 7.6.1 for a while, and noticed after a while a lot of corruption type issues with files and resources, and I reverted.

Daft thing, could you drop a comment mentioning that and describing what you saw, on the thread about the hack, to warn people?

 

[cheesestraws]

at the end of the day its more the question of can it be done and how hard it would be to do.

To drag this thread back on topic - yes, it can be done - might be a fun project to have a go at - if nothing else, it will give you an appreciation for why Apple moved to Apple System Recovery or whatever it's called based on a disc image after 7.x

 

[LaPorta]

Daft thing, could you drop a comment mentioning that and describing what you saw, on the thread about the hack, to warn people?

I lost track of the thread...do you have link for where it is?

 

[Phipli]

I lost track of the thread...do you have link for where it is?

Backporting HFS+ to Mac OS 8.0 and earlier

Hi all, I have had some success with adding HFS+ support to previously unsupported System versions. Briefly, Mac OS 7.6 and 8.0 on PowerPC work well, and I have managed to get 68k versions working with a rather inelegant hack. Here is a longer writeup...

68kmla.org

That one