Very little excites the average Mac user like a good old system update. From the initial announcement when Steve Jobs explains how the new system will cure world poverty, contact extra terrestrial life AND make a mean piece of toast in the morning to the point when that shiny disc slips into your machines waiting optical drive, it's easy to get caught up in the hype and rush into upgrading. BUt given that you WILL be upgrading, what should you look at doing to make the process as smooth and painless as possible.
Firstly (and most boringly), check that your machine will benefit from an upgrade. All G3 and early G4 Macs are barred from joining the upgrade party past OS X 10.4.11, but there are plenty of older G4 and even G5 Macs that may not be good candidates for an upgrade. Check around. It may be that your Mac will struggle to run a newer system. While most Macs (given enough RAM) are happy with 10.4 in all its flavours, most G4's will grind to a halt trying to make Leopard fly, and those that will run Leopard will need plenty of RAM. So, point one: Will your Mac run the system you are planning to upgrade to?
Any system upgrade will eat up RAM in your system so this should be your next port of call. On all modern G5 and Intel Macs the advice is clear. Find out how much RAM your Mac can handle and max it out. Now. Your system upgrade will love you. Point two: Feed me RAM Seymour.
So, disk in? Nope. Now lets protect ourselves from the inevitable consequences of disaster. Upgrades do go wrong. Just before you upgrade is the time to grab a spare external hard drive and make that cloned back up using Super Duper, Carbon Copy Cloner or similar. Upgrades can break all sorts of vital system components including software, printer drivers and other bits you need to get your work done. A nice clean clone copy means that if it all goes pear shaped you can boot from your external drive and get back to work while you plan your way out of disaster. Point three: protect your data and working system.
So, disk in? Oh OK, go on. Now you have some choices to make about how you upgrade. At this point most people make the wrong one. Upon upgrading you are offered three choices, upgrade, archive and upgrade or clean install. By default Apple offers you a plain upgrade. Wrong! The third option, clean install will wipe your drive and install a brand spanking new version of the OS on your Mac. This option is good if you are selling your Mac and need to wipe all your data, or if you have a really hard core OS problem AND your data is backed up. The first option simply upgrades your system, also wrong. An OS upgrade is a complex operation and it can and does go wrong. Any errors in the process can leave you with a broken OS, a Mac that cannot boot and a a real problem. You want option two, archive and install. This copies your existing OS and places it to one side before installing the new system and copying over all your network settings and preferences. You end up with an upgraded system with all your data safe and settings preserved. You can see your old OS in a folder labelled "previous operating system" If all is well, after a week or so you can bin this folder to free up disk space but this offers you an escape route should your install go bad. Point four: archive and install NOT upgrade.
Good to go? No, hold on, Apple gives you some more options hidden away in the customize (sorry about the z but that's how they spell it). This gives you the option to install the OS without all the extra files you may or may not need. Do you need all the X11 windowing environment? Thought not. Are Korean fonts something you use everyday? No. How about printer preferences. You have only one printer but your Mac wants to install drivers for over 200. Luckily you can remove nearly 3GB or files you don't need with three simple mouse clicks. Five: install what you need, not everything on the disk.
Finally - give yourself some time. The actual upgrade will need a good hour (apart from the time to clone your drive). In addition you will need to allow time to ferret around the internet and download new printer and scanner drivers as well as additional minor upgrades from the software update utility. Six: don't forget the extras.
It's also worth noting that unless you really have to, being a software early adopter is not always a good idea. Complex software like an OS upgrade can lead to all sorts of unexpected crashes and glitches. A couple of days scanning the forums and reading about all the little problems encountered by other, quicker off the mark users can save a lot of stress, especially if you should discover that some piece of software you depend on for your daily bread is badly broken by an upgrade.
Following this guide should help you to achieve upgrade Nirvana. How disappointed you are after the upgrade when you discover that some or all of Steve's promises fall a little short of reality is another story.
