If yesterday’s Tech Tip got your pulse racing, this tip might send you over the edge. Again using Terminal in Mac OS X Tiger, enter the following commands to disable Spotlight to conserve system resources:
In the Terminal, type this:
$ sudo su
# chmod 0000 /Library/Spotlight
# chmod 0000 /System/Library/Spotlight
# chmod 0000 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle
# chmod 0000 /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Spotlight.prefPane
# chmod 0000 /System/Library/Services/Spotlight.service
# chmod 0000 /System/Library/Contextual Menu Items/SpotlightCM.plugin
# chmod 0000 /System/Library/StartupItems/Metadata
# chmod 0000 /usr/bin/mdimport
# chmod 0000 /usr/bin/mdcheckschema
# chmod 0000 /usr/bin/mdfind
# chmod 0000 /usr/bin/mdls
# chmod 0000 /usr/bin/mdutil
# chmod 0000 /usr/bin/md
After a reboot, open a new Terminal and do sudo su to make a root shell, then:
# rm -r /.Spotlight-V100
# rm -r /private/var/tmp/mds
# exit
This can be reversed by repairing permissions.