When changing any System owned file (moving, deleting, renaming, etc.) you should be asked for
an Administrator password. That's just one reason there should be a password on any Administrator account.
and that means an actual group of characters, not just a "return" character. Otherwise, anyone and everyone can make changes to anything and everything on the machine.
Many times in the past, we were told to "Trash" a file to see if it was the source of a problem. But the "Trash" is not where most people actually store anything they value! What was really meant was to move a file so the application or OS didn't 'see' it were it was expected to be. When that happens, the application or the OS simply creates a new copy of that file. Of course, any settings you may have changed will be lost (unless you wrote them down before the change).
So, one has at least three choices: Delete (Trash), Move or Change the name of a file. If any of those actions are performed on a System owned file, you should be asked for an Administrator password. Otherwise, the action is just carried out. I prefer the latter two actions, nothing is destroyed and the application or OS simply creates a new file. You don't even need to make a copy of the original.
Important caveats:
1. The application doesn't have to be Quit before making these changes, usually. But it's safer to do so. And, generally, the info in these files is read when the app starts up, so a restart of the app is probably required.
2. You don't usually "Quit" the OS when these changes are made. But that only means that a Restart is more likely to be needed. Just like an app, the OS usually reads these files when it starts up, so it won't see the changes made until it does that.
I apologize for leaving these instructions in my previous post.
Furst erer uv thee yeer!
And, I also didn't remember the protective behavior of the OS of making a duplicate of its owned files rather than allowing us to just
move them. But that only means we need to be more determined about who is controlling whom! The OS
will allow us to
delete one of its files, we just need to give it a password...and then say, "There! Now who's boss?!"
I
do recommend using a polite voice when making that statement, however. You do remember that there is a microphone listening to everything you say to your computer, right?
Even though we are the "boss," we want the computer to like us!
"HAL. HAL? Please open the hatch, HAL."
