Interesting Mac OS X Kext File Note

/ 27 August 2007

As I’m sure most of you know by now, a “.kext” file is a driver file that runs the entire time your mac is running. If one of them crashed then your mac would crash along with it. Thankfully I only have Apple kext files installed on my MacBook, but interestingly enough they don’t all refer to the same company. I was just looking at the kext build-up in System Profiler and noticed that about half the kexts refer to their creator as “Apple Computer Inc.” and the other half refer to their creator as “Apple Inc”. The name was changed about a year ago near when Steve introduced 10.5. I bet that the kext files referring to “Apple Computer Inc.” may not have been modified with recent software updates since the name was changed. By my understanding the kext files still retaining the old name are the deepest and most-needed ones, that makes some sense, since I doubt those get changed without reference releases (next one will be 10.5). Enjoy, Alex.

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