Installing Xcode in Non-Default Location

When you install Xcode the default install location is the Developer folder on your startup disk.

/Developer

Xcode 3.x gives you the option of installing Xcode wherever you want. This feature comes in handy if you want to have two versions of Xcode installed on your Mac. To install Xcode in a different location, choose a custom install. You will see a column titled Location with a pop-up button cell with the value Developer. Click the button and choose Other. You will be prompted for a location to install Xcode.

If you choose to install Xcode in a location other than /Developer, make sure the path to your install location contains no spaces. If there are spaces in the path, you can get hangs and crashes in the Xcode Tools. I made the mistake of installing Xcode 3.1 into a folder titled Xcode 3.1. Interface Builder 3.1 would hang and give me the spinning beach ball with certain nib files. I couldn’t figure out what was causing the hang until I read on Apple’s Xcode mailing list about Interface Builder crashing when there were spaces in the installation path. I changed my folder name from Xcode 3.1 to Xcode3-1, and the Interface Builder hangs went away.

Hopefully this post will save someone the pain and aggravation I went through.