No response from Finder or System Preferences

Today I bought a brand new iMac 20" 2.0ghz to replace my iBook G4 which was getting a bit old and have been using it for hours on end with no problems. Until just now. I have been trying to access the System Preferences panel to get my Front Row remote to work (it just doesn't do anything!) but whenever I try to access any of the settings besides the 'Dock' menu, it freezes up and I have to Force Quit out of System Preferences!
I also cannot get any info on 'About This Mac' because clicking it does absolutely nothing. I have tried uninstalling the software for my tablet that I installed a few hours ago but it has made no difference.
Could it be because I'm re-importing my iTunes library at the same time as trying to do this? The remote was working earlier, as were all of the System Preferences panels, and now it has just stopped. Everything else is running as normal. Any light someone can shed on this situation would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

It seems you're going in panic!
First of all run mainteinance , look for system updates if any, and take care of any block key pressed
on your keyboard.
Do not abuse of Force Quit it 'd destroy preference applications, if your itunes take 3h to import your library you can setup in Energy Saver panel some tunings to protect lcd.
I think 3h to import a music library is not normal, can you post some other info about?
What can of device you are copying from?
Did you import ,when you set up your new iMac , an user from your old mac?
Take a look also at spotlight corner, if there's a little point inside the glass icon , spotlight is indexing your drive/s , this is normal on the first system's run and this 'd slow mac performance.

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Cannot find the system preference icon on my Power Book G4

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This is from memory, since I do not have a pre-10.5 OS on any computer.
Check the Applications folder. System Preferences is there.
What version of Mc OS X are you running?

HT203210 Where is the show popup from network on System Preferences?

Where is the show popup from network on System Preferences?
Was checking Airport support for PPPoE disconnected message which directd me to Show Popup on network in System preferences and I had 1 option. Show all.
Would love additional info on why I keep getting this message - Could not find a PPPoE server. Which interrupts wifi service to Network.

PPPoE is a protocol used to authenticate a user prior to gaining Internet access used by certain ISPs. Typically it is used for DSL Internet service. PPPoE would be configured on the device that is directly connected to the DSL modem. This could be a router or computer.
Do you currently have or previously had DSL Internet service? What is the make & model of the device that you currently have the AirPort Extreme base station connected to by Ethernet? Which exact model of the Extreme do you have?

After upgrading to 10.8.2, skype crashes on launch, finder crashes, system preferences crashes and office applications crash. Any ideas?

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If you came from 10.6, 10.7/10.8 will no longer run PPC based programs.
First run through this list of fixes, then reinstall all your programs from fresh sources for 10.8 compatability
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File Sharing Missing from Sharing in System Preferences

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AppleScript Performance Difference from Finder to System Events

I've just made an interesting discovery. I have a folder that contains about 7000 other folders. When I use the code "tell application "Finder" to set folder_list to folders in folder base_folder" it takes a very long time to respond, about 40 seconds. When I use the code "tell application "System Events" to set folder_list to every folder of folder base_folder" to seems to produce the same result in only about 2 seconds. If I add the filtering criteria, like "whose name begins with search_name", the performance difference is even greater. Clearly I'll be using System Events from now on, but can anyone explain why there is such a large difference in performance? Is there anywhere I can find other performance tweaks like this?
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It seems you're going in panic!
First of all run mainteinance , look for system updates if any, and take care of any block key pressed
on your keyboard.
Do not abuse of Force Quit it 'd destroy preference applications, if your itunes take 3h to import your library you can setup in Energy Saver panel some tunings to protect lcd.
I think 3h to import a music library is not normal, can you post some other info about?
What can of device you are copying from?
Did you import ,when you set up your new iMac , an user from your old mac?
Take a look also at spotlight corner, if there's a little point inside the glass icon , spotlight is indexing your drive/s , this is normal on the first system's run and this 'd slow mac performance.

Strange response from "Find Friends".

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For location the iPod uses the location nearby wifi routers that are in Apple's data base. You do not have to be connect to the router.
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Hi all, i have problems to connect my mac (os x 10.8.1) to some projectors. Any idea? And i can not find in system preferences, the option to select the screens. Before my upgrade, the projector was recognized automatically. Any idea? Thank you.

Thank you

These instructions finally worked for me as well, but there are two things that are left off that I had to do in order to make it work. The first is I had to have an ethernet plugged from my wireless router into my mac in order to complete the steps. The second is that after restoring the defaults, I had to then click on "enable wireless" on my desket BEFORE connecting wirelessly to the "HP" network that popped up.
Once you finally get to the web page and click on the networks tab to install the printer on the network, you may lose internet service which will then inhibit you from completing the process (every time I connected to the "hp network" that kicked me off of my own home wifi network, but you have to be connected online in order to complete the process). After trying over and over again, I finally plugged the ethernet in and started all over again with the restoring degaults, then clicking the button the deskjet that says "enable wireless", then followed all of the steps above and I finally received the completed message. Then I unplugged the ethernet cord and all was well (it was a little slow at first like someone mentioned).
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I also should mention that I have os x 10.9 of which there is no driver on hp's site, so I installed the driver for os x 10.8 first before doing the steps and that is also what helped this to work (I wasn't even able to click on the "webpage" tab on the printers page because it wasn't even finding the printer at first before downloading the 10.8 driver for the deskjet).

How do reset my mac? I have a mac that is nulled and cannot open anything except finder and system preferences. I don't have any cd's. How can I completely reset it like it just came out of the box?

Hey, can someone please help me my mac is nulled.

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I need help finding my system preferences...it's not letting me get into it at all

can anyone help me
because i can't go into it my time an date or wrong which is causing more problems

You may have some file corruption. Things to try.
Boot using your install/restore DVD & run Disk Utility on your hard drive.
If you don't have a DVD, boot in Safe Mode. See What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? (Mac OS X)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107392
Takes a while to run, but it usually "fixes" problems.
 Cheers, Tom

How do you disable cmd-p printing from finder?

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Thank you kindly Andy, for your correct suggestion. It lead me in the right direction.
I've accidentally sent pages upon pages of programming to a printer and wasted so much paper cause I fat-fingered command+p instead of command+o . Also, when you quick print it closes what you choose to print, which is real convenient incase you blink and totally miss that you sent 43 pages of programming to print.
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HOW I REMOVED command+p FROM FINDER:
Open System Preferences > click Keyboard > click Keyboard Shortcuts > click Application Shortcuts in the left panel > click the "+" button below the right panel > Select Finder as your Application: > set the menu title to exactly the case-sensative value of "Bring All to Front" > set Keyboard Shortcut to "command+p" by actually pressing the-command-key+p-key
I tried setting the Keyboard Shortcut of command+p to "Open" but the command+o stopped working.
_Acker Dawn Apple

HT4901 iCloud app can't be launched from system preferences.

iCloud app can't be launched from system preferences and screens an error to be reported to Apple:
Process:         System Preferences [408]
Path:            /Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS/System Preferences
Identifier:      com.apple.systempreferences
Version:         11.0 (11.0)
Build Info:      SystemPrefsApp-214009000000000~8
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [134]
The rest of apps can be openned but not iCloud. I have tried to log in into iCloud from the web and my iPhone and it works fine.
Any help on how to solve this problem from the macbook?
Thanks

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How do I get System Preferences from popping up??

Help, I'm new to Macs and everytime I click on a link from gmail my system preferences box pops up and I cannot get to the website without pasting link into Safari. What do I do to change this?

How are you accessing Gmail? Are you using Apple's Mail or are you looking at in Safari? If you are using Safari, if click a link on a website does that come up in Safari, or will it bring up System Preferences?
Take a look at Preferences in Safari (Safari->Preferences) and tell us what is filled in for the Default web browser. If it's not Safari, set it to Safari and let us know.
In theory you *could* choose Other and set the default web browser to System Preferences--just not sure why someone would do that or how you could easily do it by accident.

Many of my System preferences won't load in mavericks?

Since updating to 10.9 many of my system preferences won´t load. These are:
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- Printers & Scanners: Could not load Printers & Scanners preference pane.
- iCloud: Could not load iCloud preference pane.
- Internet accounts: Could not load Internet Accounts preference pane.
- Networks: Could not load Network preference pane.
- Sharing: You can’t open Sharing preferences because it doesn’t work on an Intel-based Mac.
- Users & Groups: You can’t open Users & Groups preferences because it doesn’t work on an Intel-based Mac.
- Parental Controls: Could not load Parental Controls preference pane.
- Date & Time: You can’t open Date & Time preferences because it doesn’t work on an Intel-based Mac.
Any hints on a solution are greatly appreciated!
Best regards, Mikkel

To further explain:
     I didn't need to locate any invisible files in my case. I discovered that I had 4 versions of the System Preferences application on my computer. (The System Preference applicatioin is what loads the preference pains when you seledt System Preferences.) I merely searched for "System Preferences" in spotlight. Spotlight located 4 different versions of the System Preferences application. Some of those versions apparently tied to preference panes that used the old 32 bit encoding from the non Intel processor days. When I clicked on the System Preferences under the Apple menue it was apparently pulling up an old version of the System Preferences applicatioin instead of the correct one in the main Applications folder. I also noted that if I clicked on System Preferernces in the dock or directly in the the Applications folder, I would not have the problem of some of the preference panes not able to be viewed because of the " "it doesn’t work on an Intel-based Mac" message. So I surmised that the correct System Preferences application was in the Applications Folder on the top level of the drive directory like it was supposed to be but that when I clicked on System Preferences from the Apple menue it was loading one of the 3 old System Preferences applications that were buried elsewhere on my hard drive. If you find you have more than one System Preferences application on your hard drive you need to trash the other System Preferences Applications. Before trashing the duplicates, you should test the one in the main Applications folder by directly double clicking it and make sure all the preference panes in it work properly then trash the duplicate System Preferences applications you found in spotlight.
     You may also find like I did, that you not only have duplicates of the System Preferences on your hard drive but also several old duplicates of the entire Applications folder buried on your hard drive. if that is the case you should compare each folder and make sure there is nothing in the old duplicate Applications folders you still need. You will probably find that all of the latest versions of your applications are in the main Applications folder where they should be. If so then trash all the old duplicate Applications folders as well. Keep only the main Applications folder on the top level of the hard drive.
     Trashing all these extra old Applications folders that held old duplicates of all my applications in them on my hard drive solved a bunch of other problems I was having with some of the applications as well.
     For the technically minded: Why does this happen with Mavericks and not with Mountain Lion? I suspect that the old Applications folders and old duplicate System Sreferences applications didn't matter to Mountain Lion because it searched for the System Preference application under the Apple menu differently than Mavericks does. I believe Mountain Lion seached all the top levels of the Application folder before drilling down into any subfolders to find the System Preferences application. Mavericks apparently does it the opposite way. It searches the first subfolder in you Applications folder and drills all the way down in that subfolder first before going to the next subfolder and drilling down in that subfolder all the way to the bottom. So it searches all the subfolders before searching the main level of the Applications folder for System Preferences. Since my old duplicate System Preferences applications where in subfolders with titles that were earlier in the alphabet than the main System Preferences application it searched those subfolders first, found the old System Preferences application in the those earlier folders and loaded the old System Preferences first in the subfolders instead of the correct one further on in the main Applications folder. If any one else has a better idea let me know.
--Scott
micmac2105 wrote:
Hello,
have the same problem, however, I do not understand the hint for solving the problem.
How to show invisible files?
How to find applications/system preferences and call Get info from file menu?
Where are all these things, have never seen them before or heard of them.
Thanks for help
Michael
micmac2105 wrote:
Hello,
have the same problem, however, I do not understand the hint for solving the problem.
How to show invisible files?
How to find applications/system preferences and call Get info from file menu?
Where are all these things, have never seen them before or heard of them.
Thanks for help
Michael
micmac2105 wrote:
Hello,
have the same problem, however, I do not understand the hint for solving the problem.
How to show invisible files?
How to find applications/system preferences and call Get info from file menu?
Where are all these things, have never seen them before or heard of them.
Thanks for help
Michael

TA20605 the system preferences folder is missing

Until step 9 everything works ok but at step 10 after I shoose ''all applications'' and locate the application folder, I can 't find the system preferences folder anywhere. What should i do?

Are you really using Mac OS X 10.1? If not, please state the Mac OS X version. If you select About This Mac (from the Apple menu), it should show the version of Mac OS X.
System Preferences is not a folder. It is an application. If it is not in the Applications folder, you may have accidentally deleted it, or maybe moved it, or maybe renamed it.

No response from Finder or System Preferences

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