Excellent tool to tweak the advanced settings of OS X

Experienced users of OS X will know that if you get under the hood of it enough, you can tweak it to make it work faster and more efficiently.

Most of these tricks are beyond mere mortals but TinkerTool System makes it easy for anyone to play around with their system until it’s humming just the way they want it. TinkerTool System is the sister program to TinkerTool which is a little confusing but this app is more advanced. It works very much like the System Preferences in OS X allowing you to change advanced operating system settings and gives access to internal maintenance features built into Mac OS X. Of course, it goes without saying that you should be very careful when doing this because one wrong tweak, and you may break OS X.

Many of the features you will find in TinkerTool System are duplicated in free applications such as Onyx but there’s no doubt that this app does go a bit deeper and offers more at the end of the day. For example, the uninstaller is useful because it removes associated files for all users on a system whereas free removal tools such as AppDelete only usually remove files for the logged-on user.

It is however the sheet range of features in TinkerTool System which boggles the mind. You can tweak and tinker with absolutely everything from your startup sequence to easy removal of excessive language support files installed on your system. There really is little to fault. The only thing that some existing users may complain about is the fact that no discount is offered for upgrades but for the modest price the developer asks for such a great app, it’s a small price pay.

TinkerTool System is a powerful and well designed application which will satisfy both power users and those seeking to maximum control over OS X.

Version 3.0: Added new feature to remove outdated lock files when verifying the integrity of preferences files. Added new feature to remove HTML5 databases and HTML5 local storage of Safari as part of the Internet privacy functions. Added new feature to display the current status of the operating system’s anti malware protection system. Added new feature to the standalone emergency tool to reset all preference settings of the login window or login screen. Added startup setting for OS X Mountain Lion, enforcing the power control for displays to behave more like Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Added startup setting for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to disable the “dark wake” features of the operating system. Added settings for OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to enable legacy authentication modes when connecting to old AFP file servers. Added setting for OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to disable the Bonjour Sleep Proxy feature independent of the Wake-On-LAN settings. Added setting for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to enable or disable the Time Machine feature to create local snapshots. Added setting for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to restrict the App Store application to its OS X Software Update component only. Added workaround for a technical defect of OS X Mountain Lion to avoid that the preferences subsystem of the operating system ignores commands when the application works with a high number of preference settings within a short time interval. The application is now starting significantly faster for users with a high number of Safari cookies. Access to cookies in the Users pane is postponed until they are actually needed. The feature to uninstall applications now supports preference lock files. The feature to verify the integrity of preference files now supports programs using an application sandbox. Enhanced support for cleaning Microsoft® font caches on systems running Office:mac version 14.2.3 or later. Clarified technical description of HiDPI mode for systems actually equipped with a Retina display. Due to critical issues with Apple’s login screen software on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the settings to control features of the login screen are no longer supported until further notice when running OS X 10.8 or later. Corrected a problem where displaying the user interface of an integrated copy of TinkerTool did not allow a mix of languages. Corrected a problem where the emergency standalone tool offered to run a file system check with OS X 10.8 more than once, although Mountain Lion is not capable of handling this.

Changes

• Version 3.0: Added new feature to remove outdated lock files when verifying the integrity of preferences files. Added new feature to remove HTML5 databases and HTML5 local storage of Safari as part of the Internet privacy functions. Added new feature to display the current status of the operating system’s anti malware protection system. Added new feature to the standalone emergency tool to reset all preference settings of the login window or login screen. Added startup setting for OS X Mountain Lion, enforcing the power control for displays to behave more like Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Added startup setting for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to disable the “dark wake” features of the operating system. Added settings for OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to enable legacy authentication modes when connecting to old AFP file servers. Added setting for OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to disable the Bonjour Sleep Proxy feature independent of the Wake-On-LAN settings. Added setting for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to enable or disable the Time Machine feature to create local snapshots. Added setting for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to restrict the App Store application to its OS X Software Update component only. Added workaround for a technical defect of OS X Mountain Lion to avoid that the preferences subsystem of the operating system ignores commands when the application works with a high number of preference settings within a short time interval. The application is now starting significantly faster for users with a high number of Safari cookies. Access to cookies in the Users pane is postponed until they are actually needed. The feature to uninstall applications now supports preference lock files. The feature to verify the integrity of preference files now supports programs using an application sandbox. Enhanced support for cleaning Microsoft® font caches on systems running Office:mac version 14.2.3 or later. Clarified technical description of HiDPI mode for systems actually equipped with a Retina display. Due to critical issues with Apple’s login screen software on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the settings to control features of the login screen are no longer supported until further notice when running OS X 10.8 or later. Corrected a problem where displaying the user interface of an integrated copy of TinkerTool did not allow a mix of languages. Corrected a problem where the emergency standalone tool offered to run a file system check with OS X 10.8 more than once, although Mountain Lion is not capable of handling this.