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Sunday, 06 April 2008 00:00 |
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Leopard is the latest and greatest update to Apple's Mac OS X family. It's version form is OS 10.5.x. If you're thinking about upgrading to Leopard (which I recommend doing in most cases), here are a few steps to follow:
 1. Make sure your computer can run Leopard. It requires an 867 MHz G4 or faster processor with at least 512 MB of RAM, to run acceptably.
2. Make sure all of your software and devices will run under Leopard. Not all programs and devices are Leopard compatible yet, though admittedly this number is rather small and shrinking daily.
3. Back up your data! I can't stress this step enough. If anything happens during the installation process, you want to be sure that your data is safe. Also make sure you have original discs and serial numbers for all of your applications.
4. If you're going to do an "upgrade" install (rather than a "clean" install) then make sure that your OS's software updates are all current. Some of these updates fix common upgrade problems. I also recommend repairing your disk permissions with Disk Utility before doing the upgrade.
5. Make sure your account passwords are 8 characters or less. This is a strange and rather random bug which can cause issues with an upgrade.
6. Install. You can either choose to do a "clean install", thereby wiping your entire computer clean first (this is the recommended route, but it does require more work on your behalf) or the traditional upgrade path. Both tend to work just fine in my experience.
7. Once everything is done, Leopard should boot up and present you with a welcome video. Please note that the first boot after a Leopard upgrade can take a long time. You may only see a blue screen for several minutes. If this screen lasts more than 15 minutes, feel free to cut the power and reboot your Mac.
8. Check your user accounts! In some rare cases, upgrading to Leopard causes Administrative user accounts to revert back to "standard" user accounts. If this happened, then you'll no longer be able to do administrative tasks (like installing software, or changing user account details). If this is the case, don't fret! It can be fixed.
9. Run the software updater repeatedly, until all updates are done.
10. Run Disk Utility's "repair disk permissions".
That's it! Happy computing.
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