Doesn't work with the Processor pref pane I previously installed on my Core Duo MBP to turn on /off cores.

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Here's an other trick: simply drag it out of the pref pane! ;-)

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As someone who's written a few preference panes I thought I'd point out the pitfalls of this technique.

Preference panes are generally installed to configure and/or control some sort of service, typically something that runs in the background. Unlike an application, the software that a pref pane controls may be running even when System Preferences is not open. Think of activating file sharing, for example, or something like Kensington Mouseworks.

If you delete the pref pane, the service it's controlling will not be stopped. There's nothing in this technique that'll tell the pref pane that it should do anything to stop or clean things up, so any necessary steps will not be done.

What's more, the service the pref pane is providing will have been scheduled somehow with the system-- maybe in /Library/StartupItems, maybe with launchd, or maybe by adding something to your account's login items. Removing a pref pane in as described in this post will not clear this up either.

In short, the technique described here should probably not be used unless the developer has failed to provide any other method. If there's an uninstaller, please use it.

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If I remember well, this feature was introduced with Tiger.

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I find that AppZapper does it all and completely. http://www.appzapper.com/ Well worth the 13 bucks.

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- The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

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yeah maybe appzapper does something for apps, but it doesn' work on pref panes, and so its useless in this conversation. In answering people's posts with crit, maybe explain the proper way to remove a pref pane. People writing in that they are actual pref pane devs and not putting in the proper answer adds nothing to the collective. Just sayin.

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Actually AppZapper does delete preference panes since v 1.2 (it's now at v 1.8) and at $12.95 with free upgrades for life I think it's a pretty good deal.

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