Update Apple's most recent Mac OS X Security Update, released on Monday, causes 64-bit applications to malfunction, it has emerged.

However, the Mac maker today issued a fix for the problem, posting Security Update 2005-007 version 1.1 via its Software Update tool.

Software developer Wolfram Research, which was one of the first companies to ship 64-bit Mac software after last year's release of the Power Mac G5, alerted users of its Mathematica application to the problem on Tuesday.

"Due to an error on the part of Apple, this update prevents any 64-bit-native application from running. In particular, this means that Mathematica 5.2 will not run on any G5 system if it has installed this Security Update," the company wrote in an email to customers seen by The Register.

"If you have been affected, then Mathematica 5.2 will generate a MathLink error when you try to do any computation with it.

"Apple has informed us that there is no workaround for this problem.

"Apple is investigating the problem at high priority, and intends to distribute a new Security Update in the very near future. This update will correct the problem and allow Mathematica to run successfully."

That fix came today. According to Apple, "Security Update 2005-007 v1.1 provides a combined 32- and 64-bit version of LibSystem to replace the 32-bit version that was delivered in v1.0. No other changes have been made in version 1.1.

"Security Update 2005-007 v1.1 replaces Security Update 2005-007 v1.0 for Tiger systems Mac OS X v10.4.2. Users who have already installed v1.0 on Tiger systems should install v1.1." ®

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