Disabling The "Mac OS X Software..." Link In The Apple Menu
by Scott Chitwood, January 25th, 2005

Forum member IUG says...

This sounds like something that should be simple, but it wouldn't surprise me if it isn't. Is there a way to get the "Mac OS X Software" link from the Apple menu (for free, without an app preferably)?

I'm just tired of selecting that accidently everytime I try to run Software Updater, so maybe there is a code I can delete somewhere in a preference file or something that includes that link?

The question was posed and explored in this thread, the thought being that deleting the menu item was the way to go. The proper way to approach this System mod is to disable the link.

You need use the Interface Builder application from Apple's Xcode Developer Tools to complete this mod. In addition you must have administrator priveleges in order to change folder and file permissions.

The StandardMenus.nib is located deep within the System > Library directory.

Change permissions of the English.lprj folder (or choose the language project folder that is needed for your install of Mac OS X) so you can Read & Write to it, hit the "Apply to enclosed items..." button before closing the Get Info window.

Make a copy of the StandardMenus.nib, open the copy with Interface Builder — you may see the following dialog, hit the OK button and continue on

Open the Apple menu in the Instances tab by double-clicking it.

Select Mac OS X Software... in the nib and open the Inspector palette from the Tools menu, choose the Attributes pane from the drop down menu. We have two items to change here.

Here's a before and after screenshot.

Take a look at Mac OS X Software... in the nib, you'll see that it is greyed out. Save the copy within your language project folder and quit out of Interface Builder.