Trouble loading Mac driver for Display Adapter

[glennadler@yahoo.com]

Howdy: I just bought a USB 2.0 to HDMI® Display Adapter w/ Audio (1920 x 1080). The mini CD containing the DisplayLink software drivers that came with the unit won't fit in my Mac CD drive. I then tried to download the correct driver, "DisplayLink USB Graphics Macintosh Driver" which appears to be appropriate for OSX 5 (at http://www.displaylink.com/support/mac_downloads.php). This proceeds through the installation steps, then bombs out with the error message that "The following install step failed: run preinstall script for DisplayLink software. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance."

I looked for an earlier version of the driver on the DisplayLink site, but couldn't find one.

Help!

[Carlo]

I've had the same exact thing. You are most likely using a decompression tool that you have downloaded from the App Store, like "The Unarchiver".
As you know all Mac Store applications now need to be sandboxed, this means the can't get access to admin privileges and resources.
Due to a feature/bug/oversight (pick the one you prefer) in Lion, all files created by sandboxed applications are quarantined as if they were potentially dangerous files downloaded from the Internet.
So the disk image of our driver if decompressed by an app from the Mac Store gets quarantined!
The installer needs some scripts to be run but quarantined scripts can be run only if manually confirmed by a user. And the installer does not allow user interaction for scripts so it can only fail.

Solution? Decompress the zip using a different tool not downloaded from the App Store. Select the .zip file, press command-I, from the "Open with:" menu choose the Archive Utility.

Then everything should be ok.

We'll add this as a FAQ, it's incredibly annoying.

Cheers
Carlo