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I am trying to find where the window manager is located/install on my Mac OS X system, but have not been able to do so?

Can anyone please point me to the location?

EDIT: I believe window manager on Mac is called as Quartz Compositor.

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What are you trying to accomplish? Possibly related topic. – Daniel Beck Jun 30 '11 at 10:25
I want use nm/otx tools with window manager. I want to find out how it is associated with Quartz. For example, CGContextRef does not know where it is going to paint on screen, this information is with window manager. – Rahul Jun 30 '11 at 10:30
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Mac OS X does not natively have a distinct window manager application like X on Linux. You are correct that the windowing system is referred to as Quartz Compositor. It is also referred to as WindowServer.

If you're trying to port Linux tools that require an X Windows server, you are probably better off using X11, the bundled X Window server. It's in /Applications/Utilities/X11, but isn't installed by default. You can install it by inserting the software restore disk that came with your Mac and finding the 'install additional software' package on it. Open it, and follow the instructions, ensuring that you select the X11 package when given the choice.

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Thanks Scott.If I install X11, does other applications on system continue to use Quartz Compositor or they move to X11? If they don't, which is at top level, X11 or Quartz Compositor? I mean does X11 makes use of Quartz Compositor underneath? – Rahul Jun 30 '11 at 11:07
X11 is a Mac OS X application, and therefore sits on top of the normal Mac OS X windowing system. X11 is not a replacement window manager; applications running with it will still sit on top of the Quartz desktop (it's rootless, to use the technical term). From the user's point of view, it's more like Exceed on Windows than X on Linux. – Scott Jun 30 '11 at 11:29
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Path of windowserver is...

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/Resources/WindowServer
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