[Mac] – Error Updating or Installing Olympus DSS Player Plus v7 on Mountain Lion – Unidentified Developer

Have you just tried to install DSS Player V7 Plus for Mac, Olympus’ dictation and transcription software for Apple Mac, and received an error similar to this:

Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Error Can't Be Opened Because It Is From An Unidentified Developer - Olympus

This is caused by a change in the Mac operating system at version 10.8 (Mountain Lion) called GateKeeper to help protect us Mac users from installing just any old software. The idea being driven by Apple is to as much as possible install software from the Mac App Store.

By installing software from the Mac App store this offers the highest level of security for us users by forcing developers to sandbox their applications, protecting both the operating system and us the user from grief if the software crashes or mis-behaves and from unwanted actions by the software (threats). This is the highest level of protection, there are two more levels. The next step down is signed software, this is software delivered not by the Mac App store but usually via download from the developers own website. The developer is not forced to adhere to the strict and some might say restrictive practices that the app store requires but the developer has registered themselves with Apple as developers and as such have a digitally signed certificate which allows both you and Apple to identify who developed the software. The third, final and most dodgy level is .. well .. everyone else. Developers who have not registered with Apple, can not always be traced and the software can not be guaranteed to be safe.

In Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 new security controls where introduced allowing the user to define what software we allow to be installed on our Macs. At the time of writing this post Olympus fall into the bottom category of developer, i.e. no digital certificate registered with Apple so is essentially use at your own risk software. I would advise that only Olympus software supplied from official Olympus resellers or downloaded from official Olympus websites should be installed. Download from non Olympus websites at your own risk.

So we come to the error “can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.” This is caused because in your System Preferences – Security & Privacy section you have, sensibly, the option turned off to allow any software to be installed. This can be changed while you install the Olympus DSS Player Plus software for Mac by navigating the System Preferences pane to the Security & Privacy settings but please remember to change it back afterwards to either “Mac App Store” or “Mac App Store and identified developers” whatever you are comfortable with.

Change the “Allow applications downloaded from:” option to Anywhere as shown below.

Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion - System Prefs - Security & Privacy - Change GateKeeper

As soon as this is set execute the .dmg disk image installed and you should be fine to install you DSS Player Plus software for Mac.

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