Is deleting the SystemConfiguration folder safe on OSX Snow Leopard?

Question

I have a problem with Airport and wired connections on OSX Snow Leopard on a MacBook Pro. They are dropping after a few minutes of being in use.

There is no notification when this happens, and Chrome thinks it's a DNS lookup error. I've replaced the ethernet cable and the switch with no effect. Another Windows machine on the same switch is not affected by this.

This happening with Airport as well as with the wired connection leads me to believe there is a configuration issue with my MacBook Pro.

I read here from multiple users that deleting the SystemConfiguration folder and rebooting fixes this issue.

With this question I'm not asking if that will fix it (Though if it will, feel free to comment), I'm asking if removing the folder is safe to do without any worry of data loss.

Answer 1

Deleting the SystemConfiguration will lose all your network configuration data. All the settings you've ever customized in the "Network" panel of System Preferences will be gone, and you'll be back to the out-of-box state of having a single location named "Automatic" with some reasonable default settings.

So before you delete the SystemConfiguration folder, go to the Network panel in System Preferences and look around for any settings you've customized, so you can decide if you don't mind losing that stuff.

And you can always just move the SystemConfiguration folder somewhere else and let the system automatically recreate it, and that way if you lose a valuable setting you can browse the .plist XML files in the moved copy of the folder in order to find the information you need to recreate.