tl;dr
$ sudo installer -package /Volumes/Final\ Cut\ Studio/Installer/FinalCutStudio.mpkg -target /
tl;dr #2
Trying to reinstall Final Cut Pro Studio 2.0 on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion today, I ran into this seemingly impenetrable road block:
Of course my initial reaction was to scream, curse, and rant on Twitter. After calming down, I decided to do a Google search as obviously I couldn’t be the only one running into this problem before. Unfortunately, much to my dismay, I found a ton of links of people who thought they knew the answer (but ultimately were clueless), saying it just flat out wasn’t supported and there wasn’t any solution.
Thankfully I stumbled across this blog post describing how to install FCS2 using Rosetta from a 10.6 disc. I questioned it’s accuracy because I knew Lion removed PPC support, but figured it was worth a shot. Unfortunately opening my Snow Leopard box I found the disc was missing as apparently I didn’t put it back away properly last time. Scrounging all over the house, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Doing a deep dive across the web, I wasn’t able to find a single URL (outside sketchy file download services) anywhere that I could download it either.
Back at square one again, I started thinking to myself “there’s gotta be some flag or something that’s preventing it as all the binaries are universal”, yet trying everything I could think of for search terms was proving to be fruitless. Then it dawned on me, “what if I try installing via the command line?” Low and behold, that was the magic sauce that did the trick. Apparently running `installer` via a shell works perfectly!
To get going, fire up Terminal and enter this at the command prompt:
$ sudo installer -package /Volumes/Final\ Cut\ Studio/Installer/FinalCutStudio.mpkg -target /
When running the installer, you’ll see a bunch of messages like this:
But those are expected and not an issue. The install takes a while and you won’t see any graphical progress, but ultimately you’ll see this:
installer: The install was successful.
At that point, you are all set!
Enjoy!
-Jeremy
Tags: 10.7, FCP6, FCS2, Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Studio, Lion, OS X, PPC, Rosetta






After typing:
sudo installer -package /Volumes/Final\ Cut\ Studio/Installer/Final\ Cut\ Studio.mpkg -target /
the following message appeared:
installer: Error – Your computer does not have the hardware required to run this software. See the Read Me for details.
Any idea if there is still a way to install my older version of FCP on my Maverick running mac?
details:
Mac Pro running Mavericks 10.9.5
Final cut pro 5 studio V1.0.1 (2005)
Worked on Mountain Lion as well for FCP Studio 2.
This method is so much more elegant than the other solutions out there. I hope the estranged FCP community makes a monument in your name! Or something!
Bravo Jeremy! Thanks for this post. Here I am in December of 2015 trying to install Final Cut Pro 7 (from a Final Cut Studio 5.1 disk) on a Macbook running OSX 10.8.5 and your instructions for installing FCP from the line command worked perfectly. I’m up and running with no issues. Thanks!