My friend is not very computer savy and he called about his iDVD icon being moved off the docking station and suddenly turning into a puff of smoke. I think he was trying to rearrange the icons but he dropped the idvd into the desktop. He said it disappeared.

He tried to look for the iDVD in Finder/Applications but it was not there. Is there a way for him to get it back? He tried to launch iDVD via iMovie but he got a message about iDVD needing to be upgraded.

Anyone have a suggestion? Thanks.

Don't panic. If you drag something out of the dock that's just what happens. It doesn't delete the application, just the shortcut to it. You can find iDVD in the Applications folder. If he didn't see it then he may have been looking in his personal applications folder and not the main one. Open a window in the finder (click on the smiling face icon in the dock), then click on the big "A" applications icon. You might want to switch to text view to make it easier to find. Do this by clicking on the center icon in the window toolbar where it says "view". Scroll down the list until you find iDVD, then drag its icon back to the dock.

I had him bring in his laptop. I couldn't locate the iDVD anywhere except the .pkg file. But that required the CD which he had brought. Basically, he uninstalled it unintentionally. Also after installing it, iDVD Themes needed reinstallation as well.

Thanks anyway.

Ah, well that means he did more than drag it out of the dock. He probably dragged it out of the applications folder to the trash...