Boot warning - Load Legacy Extensions?

Question

Boot warning - Load Legacy Extensions?

After migrating using a Time Machine backup from a 2013 iMac running MacOS 10.15 to a hand-me-down 2019 Macbook Pro now running MacOS 15.3, and after generally cleaning out stuff from the prior user, whenever I boot up I get a warning about loading unsupported legacy extensions:

Then, when I follow through to the Privacy & Security section where those are listed, I see this:

With all those extensions apparently the same and almost certainly left over from the previous user's HP printers, none of which (nor any new ones) exist for use now. UNLESS, of course, they aren't about HP Printers and are about something else entirely...

When I search for ".kext" files to delete and end this nuisance, "Search" finds none, and when I look in System/Library/Extensions or Printers and User/Library/Printers or Extensions I find those folders nominally "empty" (probably because for some good reason I am not supposed to see them).

How can I find them and determine if I should delete them? And how do I actually delete them? Please advise...

Thanks,

Alexander

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 15.3

Posted on Mar 23, 2025 4:31 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 24, 2025 8:42 AM in response to alexander.carpenter

alexander.carpenter wrote:

After migrating using a Time Machine backup from a 2013 iMac running MacOS 10.15 to a hand-me-down 2019 Macbook Pro now running MacOS 15.3, and after generally cleaning out stuff from the prior user, whenever I boot up I get a warning about loading unsupported legacy extensions:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/5d469e1d-9341-4784-b89b-74b687fca3f6

Then, when I follow through to the Privacy & Security section where those are listed, I see this:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/9163d081-24b6-4726-85fd-9c5da62809f1

With all those extensions apparently the same and almost certainly left over from the previous user's HP printers, none of which (nor any new ones) exist for use now. UNLESS, of course, they aren't about HP Printers and are about something else entirely...

When I search for ".kext" files to delete and end this nuisance, "Search" finds none, and when I look in System/Library/Extensions or Printers and User/Library/Printers or Extensions I find those folders nominally "empty" (probably because for some good reason I am not supposed to see them).

How can I find them and determine if I should delete them? And how do I actually delete them? Please advise...

Thanks,

Alexander

ref: How to remove legacy extensions for old p… - Apple Community

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Answer 2

Mar 24, 2025 10:07 AM in response to leroydouglas

Thanks to leroydouglas for his response, referring me to

How to remove legacy extensions for old p… - Apple Community , which I have read-through.

I can't find any of the Hp ".kext" files in any Extensions folders, so I reckon they must have gotten trapped into no-longer-accessible places within the system.

Since I have just gone through an extensive (but apparently not thorough enough) starting-almost-from-scratch system-upgrade and TimeMachine user-migration to this MBP, and reinstalled and reimported and re-calibrated and reconfigured, I am not ambitious to start over. So I wonder...

One of the contributors (Kurt Lang) to the linked reference page mentioned that we might be able to access those locked-away system extension folders if we booted from a different disk -- or did that only apply if we were using Catalina? He said that post-Big Sur that would not apply, do I interpret that correctly?

I do have a flash drive with a bootable SuperDuper backup on it, and I wonder if I boot off that drive will I (first) be able to see the original boot drive, and (second) will I be able to see those old printer ".kext" files in the original boot drive's System Extensions (as it is now called) folder or other Library Extensions folders? Or are they trapped away forever until I do a total erase, reformat, and-reinstall on the SSD?

And if I do decide to tolerate this boot-warning for now, will it degrade the function of the computer in any way (except to be a nuisance)?

Please advise, and thanks in advance...

Alexander

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Boot warning - Load Legacy Extensions?