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Installing iTunes 7.3: The extra .pkg files

To avoid the extra .pkg files, download the .mpkg instead.

CNET staff
2 min read

[Published Tuesday, August 7th]

As you've probably noticed, when there's a software update from Apple, we don't recommend allowing the Software Update program simply to do its work automatically. Rather, we prefer a more manual procedure, in stages: download the relevant file, then install it. As described in our tutorial, you can perform the first step using Software Update; you just have to be careful to choose Update > Download Only.

However, when you do that for iTunes 7.3, an odd thing happens. You get not one, not two, but three .pkg files downloaded into your /Library/Packages folder:

  • AppleMobileDeviceSupport.pkg
  • iTunesAccess.pkg
  • iTunesX.pkg

This was called to our attention by reader Harold, who wrote to us because he found this result confusing:

Downloaded separately and installed iTunes 7.3.2 with no problems on my G-4 Quicksilver running OS 10.4.10. A package entitled "iTunesAccess.pkg" was also downloaded to my Packages folder at the same time I downloaded iTunes. I have not installed "iTunesAccess.pkg" because I do not know what it is and I cannot find any references to it on the Apple Support pages.

This is a case where it is probably better to do the download a different way. If you go to Apple's Downloads page, you are eventually led to the iTunes Download page. If you download iTunes from here, what you get is not three .pkg files, but a single .mpkg file, iTunes.mpkg, which contains those three .pkg files. The result is that when you open the .mpkg file with the Installer application and run the installation, all three installations take place, seamlessly. (That, by the way, is what a .mpkg file is; it's a wrapper for multiple .pkg files that are to be installed together.)

This, indeed, seems like the best way to proceed - especially because if you start with the three separate .pkg files, you might encounter difficulties installing iTunes at all. That was the experience reported in Pierre Igot's blog. According to him, when he started with the three separate .pkg files and tried to install just iTunesX.pkg, he got an error message ("There were errors installing the software"). This turned out to be because the installer was looking for the other two .pkg files inside the iTunesX.pkg file, not beside it in the same folder. Pierre solved the problem by opening the iTunesX.pkg package in the Finder and moving the other two .pkg files into it. But if you start with the single .mpkg file, that isn't necessary; the installation just works.

Resources

  • tutorial
  • Downloads
  • iTunes Download
  • Pierre Igot's blog
  • More from Late-Breakers