Recently read an article on version 10.16 of MacOS and Apples removal of supporting System Extensions for applications.
Basically system extensions are a way for applications to have some interaction with the operating system without full kernel access.
If you have upgraded to 10.15.4 recently you may have seen a pop up warning saying certain applications are using system extensions and should be reviewed and updated. Looks like from version 10.16, these will be removed and support for the application wont be there any more under the new version of MacOS.
Similar to when the OS Catalina withdrew support for 32 bit applications, big vendors such as Adobe were slightly caught our with it, and a lot of smaller ones, although they had a few years of warning. In either case, a lot of users upgraded anyway and were also caught out by the update and resulted in applications not working.
How to Test
You will automatically get notified buy the OS that there are applications at risk. If you dont, we would recommend checking with the vendors of your critical applications to ensure they are supported. Vendor support articles should give you the answers you need.
Its worth checking what Operating System you are running currently. To do this, click your Apple menu item, top left.
Click About This Mac (you can see I have one update to apply)
We need to update this mac to 10.15.4 for an easy way to know if there will be any applications that are affected.
Updated to 10.15.4 and we have one application that needs attention
One for us to log with SentinelOne it seems 🙂 as there is no clear information yet on support on their website.
What you should do about your MacOS
If you get any reports of issues, you can safely proceed with saying OK and you will get periodic reminders. Its a good time to tell us about it now, click here to log a ticket, or get in touch with the application developer or vendor to confirm that they are aware.
It is best not to update your OS until you are certain your applications will work.
If you want to log a support call, to to our website here and click the IT Support button on the bottom left, and one of our agents will get in touch
For more information, Apples article is here
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