I Bought a Mac - Latest Comments in Leopard: Upgrade or Clean Install?

Re: Leopard: Upgrade or Clean Install?

adam — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:02:35 -0000

Hi Cheryl. Perhaps I could write a piece on the simplicity of Apple's framework and how easy it is to install applications. If you perform an "archive and install" during the Leopard installation, all of your applications will be preserved. You may have to reinstall the big ones (if you have these)
Adobe CS3
Microsoft Office
Apple iLife
Apple iWork
Final Cut Studio
Logic
AppleWorks

most shareware applications are just drag and drop. Copy them right over and you're good to go.

I do appreciate your logic of waiting and for many users, that's the best decision. Thanks for following up on my comments and I wish you the best of luck when it's time to move to Leopard. You can email any questions along the way to help@iboughtamac.com and we'll be sure to give you a hand.

Re: Leopard: Upgrade or Clean Install?

Cheryl Colan — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:06:54 -0000

Of course Gruber isn't the only available opinion. But dang, re-installing every single app would literally take me 48+ hours. I don't have that kind of time to lose *unless* an upgrade is going to hose my system anyway. Which is why, no matter how cool the new OS, I don't upgrade the day the new cat comes out. I wait, watch the forums, find out what problems all the bleeding-edgers with the same system configuration as I've got have, and make an informed decision on what update path to take when the time is right for me.

Re: Leopard: Upgrade or Clean Install?

NickHumphries — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:42:19 -0000

Clean install is the way to go, everything went perfectly.

Re: Leopard: Upgrade or Clean Install?

Bart Hanson — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:13:09 -0000

Unsanity's APE isues aside, I too disagree that upgrading is any more fraught than a clean install.
I have upgraded many Panther machines to Tiger and hope to upgrade many Tiger machines to Leopard.
Anyway there's lots of room for error when moving Apps, Documents, not mention Library items back over after a clean install.
An alternative is to clean install Leopard to an external FW drive, boot up off it, then Use Migration Assistant (Best utility ever) to copy over Users, Apps documents settings etc, Finally either repaet the clean reinstall on first machine and migrate everything back again, or, Clone the external onto first machine.

Re: Leopard: Upgrade or Clean Install?

Kez — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:09:26 -0000

I disagree with your sentiment that the default upgrade install is more dangerous. If it was so, I don't think Apple would have made it the default. It works well for most users.

I did what John Gruber and many more seasoned mac users suggested: make a backup of your mac contents and do the default upgrade - if it fails, then go on to the clean install with your backup, nothing is lost. If it works, you just saved yourself a whole lot of time. I had Leopard running on my computer in 50 minutes with this method and I'm as happy as I can be.

Re: Leopard: Upgrade or Clean Install?

Fred — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 13:47:37 -0000

I have yet to see proof that an upgrade is any more dangerous than an clean install. I have seen more evidence that 3rd party hacks are the problem as Apple blessed files are treated the same regardless of install behavior.

Re: Leopard: Upgrade or Clean Install?

Cheryl Colan — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 02:51:32 -0000

John Gruber has a different take over at Daring Fireball: make yourself a bootable backup, then perform the default upgrade - as that is Apple's most tested upgrade path. Or alternatively you could Archive and Install.

I'm going to trust him when I update and do it that way, in the hope that I won't have to spend hours and hours and hours reinstalling all my applications. It would be a major pain for me to have to do that right now, and would definitely take more than 5 hours. I would probably need to set aside an entire weekend.

And if it does all go wrong, I'll restore from my backup and try again with a clean install, but it will have to wait until that week between Christmas and New Year's Eve when I can afford the time.