UnmountIt is free software and can be distributed freely by individuals. For commercial distribution or bulletin board distribution please contact Apple Software Licensing.
UnmountIt is distributed “as is” and unsupported by Apple or the author. Please don't call Apple or the author for technical support on this program.
•••••••••• What's it do? ••••••••••
UnmountIt lets you easily unmount and eject sharable volumes when Macintosh File Sharing is in use. You can can use UnmountIt a couple of ways:
• You can simply leave it on your desktop or in an open folder. Whenever you want to unmount a sharable volume, just drag the volume icons to UnmountIt instead of the Finder’s Trash icon. UnmountIt will launch, unmount and eject the volumes, and then UnmountIt will quit.
• You can launch UnmountIt and leave it running. Whenever you want to unmount a sharable volume, either drag the volume icons to UnmountIt instead of the Finder’s Trash icon or select “Unmount Volume…” from UnmountIt’s File menu. UnmountIt will unmount the volumes and leave itself running.
Any mounted volume can be unmounted with UnmountIt and UnmountIt always attempts to do the right thing. Unmount will:
• turn off Macintosh File Sharing (if needed), unmount and eject the volume, and then turn Macintosh File Sharing back on (if it was on to begin with).
• warn you before turning off Macintosh File Sharing if any remote users are using the File Sharing file server.
• empty trash on AppleShare volumes before unmounting them.
• warn you before unmounting local non-ejectable volumes.
• not let you unmount the boot volume.
• not let you unmount a volume that has open files on it.
•••••••••• Technical Background ••••••••••
When Macintosh File Sharing is turned on, it builds a list of sharable volumes by first enumerating the entire list of volumes with the Macintosh File Manager’s PBHGetVInfo function and checking the volume’s attributes with the PBHGetVolParms function. Each volume found is then checked for specific attributes which make it unsharable. The reasons a volume might be unsharable are:
• the volume is owned by the .Sony driver—that is, the volume is a 3.5” floppy disk.
• the volume is a remote AppleShare volume.
• the volume does not support the System 7 Desktop Manager.
• the volume cannot be prepared for use by Macintosh File Sharing. Macintosh File Sharing attempts to create, or verify if already created, the parallel directory structure (PDS) file which will be either in that volume’s root directory or in the boot volume’s “System Folder:Preference” folder if the volume is read-only (for example, in the case of a CD-ROM or locked removable disk cartridge). If the PDS file cannot be created, the volume is not sharable.
The first 10 volumes Macintosh File Sharing finds that are sharable are then shared for use by the Macintosh’s owner remotely, even if they haven’t been made share points. That brings up the following question: What’s the difference between a sharable volume and a share point?
• A sharable volume is a volume that the Macintosh server owner can access remotely whenever Macintosh File Sharing is on. When looking at the file server from the Chooser, the server owner can see and mount any sharable volume. The server owner can always access the entire mounted sharable volume remotely.
• A share point is the root folder (it might or might not be the root directory of a volume) of an area the Macintosh server owner has made accessible to other users by checking the “Share this item and its contents” box in the Finder’s Sharing dialog. Macintosh File Sharing supports up to 10 share points per server. Those 10 share points can be placed on any sharable volume. All users except for the server owner see share points when they look at the file server from the Chooser.
When File Sharing is on, Macintosh File Sharing imposes a couple of restrictions on sharable volumes. The volume names and share point folder names are locked, and the sharable volumes cannot be unmounted (even if no remote user has them mounted). This is done because Macintosh File Sharing does not let the list of volumes change while a remote Macintosh has a shared volume mounted or while a remote Macintosh is looking at the list of volumes with the Chooser. If you try to unmount a sharable volume by dragging it to the Trash while Macintosh File Sharing is on, you’ll get the following message from the Finder: “The volume “VolumeName” could not be put away, because it is being shared.”
The only way you can unmount a sharable volume is to turn Macintosh File Sharing off, unmount (and possible eject) the volume, and then turn Macintosh File Sharing back on. UnmountIt automates that task.
Note: One of these restrictions was removed by additional code present in the AppleShare 3.0 file server; a volume can be unmounted at any time with AppleShare 3.0, but all remote users who have that volume mounted must be disconnected before the volume can be unmounted.
If you find any bugs or have any comments, let me know at:
