Change of installation destination while installing Stata-15 (MAC OSX)

[Roman Mostazir]

Hi,

I have asked my IT administrators to install Stata-15 at my work computer (MAC-OSX). I would like to install it in a different location rather than the default path HD/Applications/Stata. The reason I would like it that way is to gain the right to install the frequent updates by myself instead of making frequent requests to the IT people. I have local admin rights which works fine when I install the user written programms but that does not work with the Stata released updates. At page-10 of the installation guideline , it says you can change the destination but I was unable to do it when I installed Stata-15 in my own computer (MAC-OSX). It gives you the option to change the destination but picks up only the Hard drive as a location without further folder changing option. Could anyone please suggest how to change the destination, without creating further partiotion in the HD, while installing Stata-15 as suggested in the guideline.

All the best,

[Chinh Nguyen (StataCorp)]

If you have administrator privileges, you should be able to update Stata yourself because Stata is installed as group writable for administrators. To look at file permissions for Stata's folder, select the Stata folder from the Finder then select File > Get Info. Look under Sharing & Permissions: at the bottom of the window and note the second item in the listbox. For me, it shows admin under Name and Read & Write under Privilege.

You should not have to change anything if you really have administrator privileges (nor could you if you don't) but if for whatever reason the Stata folder and its contents are not group writable for administrators, you can change the privileges here. Just make sure you click on the gear popup button and select Apply to enclosed items... so that all files within the directory are changed. You must be careful to only select the Stata folder when you do this an not any other folder on your Mac.

If you really want to install Stata in a different location, we use Apple's installer for installing Stata which doesn't gave you much flexibility on changing where an application gets installed. However, you can move the Stata folder anywhere on your hard drive after it's been installed. Stata does not require that it be installed in /Applications so you can move it to your personal Applications folder if you wish. You just have to keep the Stata application within the Stata folder so that it can find it's ado files and other support files.

[Roman Mostazir]

That is very helpful information Chinh. Thank you so much.
All the best,

[Roman Mostazir]

Dear Chinh, Just to update, your suggestion of "Apply to enclosed items" at#2 resolved the issue. Thank you again.

[Tristan Lane]

Hi guys,

I am running into a brick wall with 10.14.5 and STATA 15.1...

Despite me having changed the permissions it still can't do it. Ado/Base appears to be the big problem.

[William Lisowski]

First, have you reviewed the detailed installation guide for the Mac in ig.pdf - the Stata Release 15 Installation Guide - included with your copy of Stata? It recommends dragging the existing /Applications/Stata folder to the Trash and emptying the Trash before installing a new version. That really resets things to a clean slate.

And, speaking as a Mac user who maintains a separate administrator account from my day-to-day account which lacks administrator privileges, I definitely install Stata by logging into the administrator account, not just "authenticating" from my user account, so if you too have a separate administrator account, keep that in mind.

Beyond that, I suggest you contact Stata Technical Services directly at

https://www.stata.com/support/tech-support/contact/

which is what their on-line Installation Guide recommends if you are having problems.

Most of us on Statalist have limited experience installing Stata, and even less installing it on a recent update to Mojave. (Or indeed on any update to Mojave, which hadn't been released when Stata 15 came out.) The Technical Services staff have collectively seen a wider array of what can go wrong, and are more likely to have learned of any problems brought about by macOS 10.14.5.