12-02-2011, 01:40 AM
Repairing permissions sets permissions back to their default state on certain system files. Since almost all of these files are seldom if ever modified there's almost no risk of permissions being set incorrectly for them.
Moreover, permissions get changed from their original settings during OS updates. And they're supposed to be changed. That's not an error, but it's reported in the Disk Utility when a permissions-repair is run and people often think that the report is about an error.
Then they freak out. "Oh god!! My permissions have changed!! My computer is all messed up!!"
But it's not a big deal at all.
And even if permissions were somehow changed by accident on one of those system files, the odds are that you'll never experience a symptom from that. There are a lot of files in the OS and a lot of redundancy. Worst thing you're likely to experience is a repetitive log entry in the Console.
Years and years ago when the Mac OS was young, Apple's installer app sometimes messed up a few permissions on a folder n the path to a new file. That was eliminated by Panther. And Tiger made the OS much more robust to the point where permissions errors practically vanished.
So don't worry about permissions errors. They're just not a "thing" anymore.
Moreover, permissions get changed from their original settings during OS updates. And they're supposed to be changed. That's not an error, but it's reported in the Disk Utility when a permissions-repair is run and people often think that the report is about an error.
Then they freak out. "Oh god!! My permissions have changed!! My computer is all messed up!!"
But it's not a big deal at all.
And even if permissions were somehow changed by accident on one of those system files, the odds are that you'll never experience a symptom from that. There are a lot of files in the OS and a lot of redundancy. Worst thing you're likely to experience is a repetitive log entry in the Console.
Years and years ago when the Mac OS was young, Apple's installer app sometimes messed up a few permissions on a folder n the path to a new file. That was eliminated by Panther. And Tiger made the OS much more robust to the point where permissions errors practically vanished.
So don't worry about permissions errors. They're just not a "thing" anymore.