aperture 2 trial hack
February 15th, 2008
aperture, photography, software 
ian
Update: 18feb08 My original hack required multiple edits in order to get the program to run, but Michal has found a far better method that just means a single change is required – I’ve reproduced it here from his comments and email so it’s easy to see what to do.
Update: 04mar08 At the request of hydr0, I’ve added screen shots of the application to demonstrate what zero-padding is – click on the image to view the whole application window grab if you require more context.
I’d sort of promised myself that by the time Aperture 2 came out I’d have managed to get a machine that was modern enough to be supported natively and be able to drop this script hackery rubbish… Needless to say, in light of certain other recent events a new Mac isn’t likely in the near future, and besides, if Aperture 2 is faster than 1.5.6 as all the early reviews indicate, maybe I don’t need to upgrade afterall.
Ok, this time I don’t have the original media, just the same trial package as everyone else so there will be two stages to this. The first is to allow the installer to run and ignore the minimum requirement checks – I skipped this last night on my PowerBook and didn’t install any of the helper packages and happily crashed my system when trying to quit the program. Not recommend.
In order to get the program installed on my MDD dual 867MHz G4 I had to fudge the speed test:
- Download the trial from Apple’s website
- Open the
ApertureTrial.dmgdisc image - Create a new directory on your hard drive
- Drag the two items out of the
.dmgand onto your local disc - Right-click on the
ApertureTrial.mpkgfile and chooseShow Package Contents - Open the
Contentsdirectory - Right-click on the
ApertureTrial.distfile and chooseOpen Withand thenOther... - Choose a text editor such as
TextWranglerorTextEdit - Scroll down until you find:
function installationCheck() - Change the next
var regexpline to read:var regexp = /Power/; - Change the next line to read:
if (!checkCPUFrequency(600000000)) - Find the line below this that reads
checkRAMRequirementand change the value inside the brackets if desired - Save this file
- Double click on the
ApertureTrial.mpkgicon and the installation should complete. Note you will need the trial licence key emailed to you by Apple
This will change the limit from a 1.25 GHz PowerBook to a 600MHz generic Power machine (ie: any G4 system). Note that you can drop the RAM requirement below 1GB and take the CPU limit down below 600MHz if you desire, but I would really, really question how usable this would make the final program.
After the installation has completed (don’t forget to rename your existing Aperture program – the trial will stop if you haven’t and ask you to do so) you will find that it fails to launch, complaining the the computer doesn’t meet requirements. Now it’s time for the hex editor (0xED.app is my favourite choice here) on the binary, just like before.
Michal’s new version:
- Open
0xED- Choose
File -> Open...- Navigate to
/Applications, thenAperture.app, thenContents, thenMacOS, and finally choose theAperturefile and then click onOpen- Ensure the editor is set to
Overwritemode (Edit -> Write Mode)- Enter
6d21b0into theOffsetbox and hit Enter- Check the ASCII side of things and you should see the string
performRequirementsCheckstarting under the cursor- Replace the string with
performLicenseCheck- Switch to the hex view, and erase the extra five characters (the
Checkstring) with zeros- Save this file
- Launch
Apertureas you normally wouldThat’s it: no more video card checks or RAM limits to edit.
The data before editing looks like this:
After editing, it should look like this:
My original method, purely for reference now:
- Open
0xED - Choose
File -> Open... - Navigate to
/Applications, thenAperture.app, thenContents, thenMacOS, and finally choose theAperturefile and then click onOpen - Ensure the editor is set to
Overwritemode (Edit -> Write Mode) - Enter
6D237Cinto theOffsetbox and hit Enter - Check the ASCII side of things and you should see the string
PowerBookstarting under the cursor - Open
Terminaland typesysctl hw.model. On my MDD dual 867MHz system this returns:hw.model: PowerMac3,6 - Replace the
Bookpart of the string in the0xEDwindow with the four characters after the wordPowerin thesysctlresult. In my case, this meansMac3so the string in the0xEDwindow now readsPowerMac3 - Save this file
This has changed the requirement for a G4 laptop to be a test for your exact system. Now it’s time to change the CPU requirements, as Aperture still expects a 1.25 GHz minimum G4, and now there are two options: the first is to open the Info.plist file and hand edit it, or you can type one command at the Terminal (the second way is faster, but changes the plist from ASCII to binary – not an issue for most people).
Option 1:
- Using either a Text Editor or the plist editor that comes with the Developer Tools, open the file
/Applications/Aperture.app/Contents/Info.plist - Look for the key called:
RKG4LaptopMinimumCPUSpeedMHzand change the value that follows it from1250to something less than your system, eg:600 - Save the file
- Launch
Apertureas you normally would
Option 2:
- Open
Terminaland type:defaults write /Applications/Aperture.app/Contents/Info RKG4LaptopMinimumCPUSpeedMHz -int 600 - Launch
Apertureas you normally would
This does work, but I have had problems when quitting Aperture: the program does keep all of my changes but often crashes on termination. So far as this evaluation goes, I can live with that but maybe others out there can sort out a clean shutdown ?
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