Enabling Aperture on Non Administration Account

Wow,

I haven't written a post in a while ... life gets busy!  (Wordy post ... Jump down for the solution)

Well, my iPhoto Library is enormous!  30,000 items and over 65 GB.  With new 10+ megapixel cameras out there, the growth rate is just going to increase!

So performance of iPhoto is getting abysmal!

I did a little research and looks like Apple is pushing Aperture as the next step (and they dropped the price in the App Store to $79) so I downloaded the trial (http://www.apple.com/aperture).

Of course, the install was a piece of cake, and I got the trial license ... however, when I went to run it from  my normal day-to-day non-admin account, it just Hung ... spinning beach ball ... nothing.

After some tinkering, I noticed that I could run Aperture fine from the administration account.  So I figure, this must be a permissions thing ... as I am pretty busy, I figured I would call Apple Support and speed up the solution!  Big Disappointment!!!  The person I talked to was not as knowledgable as I would have expected, and their answer was that you had to run Aperture from an administration account because it was a "professional" app.

What !?! That goes against everything I have ever read about the Mac and why OS X is secure.  It even goes against Apple's published security guidelines (https://ssl.apple.com/support/security/guides/)!  As I quote from the Snow Leopard guideline:

Unless you need administrator access for specific system maintenance tasks that cannot be accomplished by authenticating with the administrator’s account while logged in as a normal user, always log in as a nonadministrator user. Log out of the administrator account when you are not using the computer as an administrator. Never browse the web or check email while logged in to an administrator’s account.

Undaunted by the lack of knowledgeable tech-support (rant over), I dug in.  First I checked the normal locations (preferences and application support for Aperture) to ensure permissions were correct, but everything seemed good. Using the fs_usage command line utility, I started tracking what files Aperture was using.  I noticed that there was file access to the /Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/ProApps folder.

Setting Permissions on that folder and enclosed items resolved the issue!

Step by Step Guide How To Run Aperture from Non-Administration Account

• Install Aperture and Activate License from Administration Account.
• Browse to /Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/ProApps folder (your path may be different if  you named your hard disk.

ProApps File Location

• Right Click (command click) on the ProApps Folder to display the properties of the folder.  Note the Sharing & Permissions section down the bottom.

ProApps Info

• Unlock the folder and ADD (use + button) your normal non-administration account.  In this example it is the "home" account.  Give the account Read & Write permissions
• Select the Gear Button and apply the changes to enclosed items.

Apply changes to Enclosed Items

• Switch back to your non-administration account and Aperture should work!