After complaining quietly about the lack of upgrade-pricing for the new Apple iWork, I finally decided that if the new release runs faster then the current one it would be worth the upgrade. (For reference, I can type faster then Pages can display text on a 1.33 Ghz G4 PowerBook — and I’m not that fast a typist.) So I hit apple.com and placed an order.
The iWork package got here in a few days (inside a gigantic box with a bunch of that “packaged air” stuff), and I finally got around to starting the installation yesterday. I popped the CD in the PowerBook, and… the PowerBook spit it right back out. In again… ejected again. WTF? Third time’s a charm, and the CD finally mounted. I kicked off the installer… and the machine locked up. Wonderful. After ten to fifteen minutes of grinding noises from the CD drive, the OS recovered and I ejected the disk. Not one to give up easily, I rebooted the machine and make sure no apps were running before trying again. This time the CD mounted and I was able to launch the installer. However, shortly past the “100% Complete” mark, the installer popped-up an Error message and suggested I re-try. I did, with the same result.
At this point I assumed the media was bad, so over lunch I dropped by the local Apple Store. This, of course, was a mistake. Surprisingly enough, I was the only person at the Genius Bar when I was asked if I had a reservation. “No.” “Well, you can use the computers behind you to book a time-slot.” The next one free was four hours from now. “Since we’re both here, can I just ask a question?”, I ask. “Well, most questions turn out to be complicated.. but I guess. What’s the problem?” I explain the situation. “Hmm.. where did you buy this?” she asks. “Apple.com”, I say. “Oh, well we can’t help you then. We can only help if you bought the software from us. You need to call AppleCare.” I had a feeling this was going to be the answer, so I’ll just put this next line in bold for those skimming the article: You can’t get support at the Apple Store for Apple software bought from Apple.com.
Since I have a serial number and only need the installers, I did ponder just looking for a torrent, but I figured that having working media was a reasonable expectation after dropping 80 bucks for this software, so I went ahead and gave AppleCare a call. The AppleCare tech support guy was a bit more friendly, and thankfully we got it working. No need for a fancy story, but I wanted to point out the steps in case someone else needs them in the future:
- Quit all running apps.
- Go to
/Library/Receipts/and delete the pkg files for the app in case they’re corrupt. (In this case, the file isiWork.pkg.) - Delete the Application if some of it was installed (
/Applications/). - Delete any applicable Preferences in
~/Preference/. - Launch Disk Utility (in
/Applications/Utilities/.) - Mount the installer CD (crossing your fingers that it works.)
- Do a “File…New…Disk Image from CD” and create a local copy of the installer CD. (NOTE: Make sure you have enough space on your hard-drive.)
- When complete, eject the CD.
- Use the Finder to find your new disk image, and double-click to mount it.
- Using the Installer on the disk image, try to install the app.
When installing from the disk image, my installation completed and the apps now work. No idea what the problem was (it could have been corrupt files from the first install attempt.. it could have been a CD read error), but it’s solved now.