Snow Leopard: My Upgrade Experience

This post was written by joe on September 1, 2009
Posted Under: General Info, Software

No Upgrade Headaches Here!

I recently pre-ordered a copy of Snow Leopard (Family Pack), and eagerly waited for it to show up so I could upgrade my Mac’s. My package arrived late friday afternoon (Thanks FedEx for your promptness). So I spent Friday evening upgrading my office Mac to Snow Leopard.

With the office Mac, I adhered to the simple instructions that came with the disc:

Insert DVD and Double Click Install.
And Click “Customize” if you want to change what’s installed.

Simple enough, right? It was. It took about 45 mins. to fully update to this new version of OS X. I’d like to say I had a list of beware’s to warn you about, but I simply don’t. The upgrade went smooth, and uneventful. Upon restarting my Mac, I did notice it boot up faster than before. Programs seemed snappier also. In fact, I have to admit that this upgrade was as close to perfect (as far as problems or headaches) as I have ever come with an upgrade. Thanks Apple!

I didn’t get around to upgrading our other laptops until Sunday. With these, I went with a so called clean install. This basically entails erasing the hard drive, and reinstalling the OS from scratch. ( I can’t stress enough about backing up your data, especially if you want to do this type of install.)

During the weekend, I watched the latest episode of Don McAllister’s ScreenCastsOnline covering the installation of Snow Leopard. (His screencast’s are an invaluable resource and will save you time and trouble when working with your Mac. You can watch this free episode here.) From this screencast I learned a valuable tip when installing clean with Snow Leopard: You can wipe (Erase) the drive, and do a full install from your Snow Leopard disk. Using this method, I upgraded our laptops with no problems.

Final thoughts: In my opinion, which ever type of install you go with, you should have an easy time with Snow Leopard. If your planning on upgrading, I say go for it. And with the price to upgrade, you can’t go wrong. I’ll be working with Snow Leopard this week before giving further thoughts on it.

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Tags: Apple, Apple Site, Don McAllister, Installation, Mac, Operating System, Opinion, OS 10.6, OS X, ScreenCastOnline, Upgrading

Reader Comments

This sounds great. Not sure yet if I’m going to upgrade. If I do I am going to go take a look at the screen cast first.

Thanks for the update on this.

Written By Tamara on September 1st, 2009 @ 10:35 AM

Thanks Tamara,

Definitely check out the screencast, Don dose a great job. I say go for it!

Written By joe on September 1st, 2009 @ 11:35 AM

I got a new Toshiba laptop and with it I get a free upgrade to Windows 7 and all I can say is I hope it goes as well for me as yours did for you but I’m not holding my breath since it’s a PC. I can hope though, right??